KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has approved RM47.67mil in training aid for 19,084 places in high-impact technology fields to help build its semiconductor talent pipeline, the Dewan Rakyat was told.
Investment, Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Johari Abdul Ghani said the funding, approved by the Human Resource Development Corporation (HRD Corp), covered nine areas linked to the semiconductor industry.
These include integrated circuit (IC) design, advanced packaging, automation and digital technology.
Johari said the training was part of the National Semiconductor Strategy (NSS), under which Malaysia aims to develop 60,000 highly skilled engineers by 2030.
He said 22,849 people had been trained through various programmes conducted by higher education institutions and technical training providers as at the third quarter of this year.
"This achievement shows progress towards the target of 60,000," he told the Dewan Rakyat on Wednesday (Oct 21).
"However, continued efforts are needed to ensure that the talent pool is not only sufficient in numbers, but also meets the increasingly complex skills and expertise required by the semiconductor industry."
Yeo Bee Yin (PH-Puchong) wanted an update on the NSS, including the number of people trained, expenditure, job placements by subsector and retention rates in the local semiconductor ecosystem.
Johari said the government was still compiling data on the number of trainees placed in various subsectors and those retained in Malaysia’s semiconductor industry.
His ministry was coordinating data collection with the Higher Education Ministry, Human Resources Ministry, implementing agencies, educational institutions and industry players, he added.
Johari said the NSS talent development effort involved a whole-of-government approach, with ministries and agencies using existing allocations and programme grants to provide training, upskilling and reskilling.
He said his ministry, through the Collaborative Research in Engineering, Science and Technology Centre (CREST), supported talent development through the Engineering Talent for Semiconductor Industry programme in collaboration with HRD Corp.
"The programme focuses on upskilling and reskilling workers, graduate employability, as well as industry-academia collaboration," he said.
The training covers IC design, advanced packaging, wafer fabrication, embedded systems and automation.
Johari said the Higher Education Ministry was working with industry players to ensure that university courses, training and research were aligned with the semiconductor sector’s needs.
Among the initiatives, he said, were an electronic engineering franchise programme with ViTrox, an advanced electronic packaging syllabus developed with Intel, and a semiconductor assembly, test, marking and packaging curriculum with Micron.
He added that universities had partnered companies such as NXP, Infineon, TSMC, GlobalFoundries, SilTerra, AMD, Nexperia, onsemi and Texas Instruments in areas including IC design, chip packaging and next-generation semiconductors.
Johari said the Manpower Department was running a full-time microelectronics technology programme at the Advanced Technology Training Centre (Adtec) in Taiping, with 174 students enrolled as at Aug 31.
He said the department was also setting up the Human Resources Ministry Semiconductor Academy at the Japan-Malaysia Technical Institute in Penang.
The academy has been allocated RM5mil for this year and will focus on IC design, IC fabrication and advanced IC packaging, he said.
The allocation includes training for 50 specialist instructors, with the aim of producing 30 master trainers in semiconductor-related fields.
In a supplementary question, Yeo raised concerns that Malaysia could lose skilled semiconductor workers to overseas employers offering better pay.
Johari said salaries in the industry varied according to experience and specialisation.
He said junior engineers earned between RM3,500 and RM6,000 a month, while IC design and research and development specialists could earn between RM8,000 and RM25,000.
Johari acknowledged that workers could earn two to three times more for comparable jobs in Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and the United Kingdom, although living costs in those countries were also higher.
