S04-E02 Janaki is a technician at Analog Devices

Janaki is a Equipment Engineering Technician at Analog Devices in Beaverton, OR outside Portland. Janaki had a career in small business, but needed to make a change. Hear how Janaki transitioned to working in the semiconductor industry by enrolling in Portland Community College’s Microelectronics Program.

The Talking Technicians podcast is produced by MNT-EC, the Micro Nano Technology Education Center, through financial support from the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education grant program.

Opinions expressed on this podcast do not necessarily represent those of the National Science Foundation.

Join the conversation. If you are a working technician or know someone who is, reach out to us at info@talkingtechnicians.org.

Links from the show:

Episode Web Page: https://micronanoeducation.org/students-parents/talking-technicians-podcast/

Portland Community College Microelectronics Program: 

https://www.pcc.edu/programs/microelectronics/

Analog Devices: https://www.analog.com/en/about-adi/careers.html

Transcript

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Peter Kazarinoff  0:03  
From MNT-EC, the Micro Nano Technology Education Center, this is Talking Technicians. The podcast about technicians: who they are, what they do, and where they come from. I'm your host, Peter Kazarinoff. I teach technicians and engineers that Portland Community College. In each episode, you'll meet a working technician and hear their story. That means real interviews, with real technicians, about real jobs. At the end of each episode, you'll hear actions you can take if you want to be a technician too.

In this episode, you'll meet Janaki. Janaki is an equipment engineering technician at Analog Devices in Beaverton, Oregon, outside Portland. Janaki. welcome to Talking Technicians.

Janaki  0:56  
I Peter, I'm glad to be here.

Peter Kazarinoff  0:57  
Thanks so much for joining us. So Janaki, you work at Analog Devices and Beaverton, Oregon. Do you live around there too?

Janaki  1:04  
Yeah, I actually live in Portland. I just moved here from Beaverton about five minutes away from the fab. But I'm still about 20 minutes away. So pretty close.

Peter Kazarinoff  1:13  
So you live pretty close there. And did you grow up in the Portland area?

Janaki  1:17  
I did. I've lived here my entire life.

Peter Kazarinoff  1:21  
And tell me about where you work. You're an equipment engineering technician, what's an equipment engineering technician? And what do they do day-to-day at analog devices?

Janaki  1:34  
So what we what I do day to day is perform preventative maintenance on the machines, and also do recoveries and repairs on the machines when they need it. A lot of troubleshooting goes along with that as well.

Peter Kazarinoff  1:48  
So you work with a bunch of equipment. And then you said that analog devices has a fab? Could you explain what a fab is? What does that mean for somebody that doesn't work in the semiconductor industry?

Janaki  2:02  
Oh, sure. It's the factory that makes micro chips, basically. They have big machines that process wafers that have lots of little chips on them. And then they sell them individually to companies. And

Peter Kazarinoff  2:16  
So some of the work that you do, produces those chips. How do those chips help your community or help other people out there? Why is it important that we're making these?

Janaki  2:32  
They're pretty much everything that we do in modern society, like electric cars, self driving, even the Fitbit watches that we wear, it's all a part of it. So

Peter Kazarinoff  2:41  
these chips are really important just for every part of kind of society to work together. So would you be willing to provide a ballpark salary for your job as a starting technician at Analog Devices? Or if somebody went somewhere else in the semiconductor industry?

Janaki  2:58  
Yeah. So actually, so that's kind of what attracted me to it on the PCC website, it gives like a range of $55,000 a year up. And from my experience, and everybody else that I know that's right on target.

Peter Kazarinoff  3:12  
So with that as a starting salary, are there opportunities for professional growth at Analog Devices?

Janaki  3:19  
Absolutely. They, they work to keep us educated, and give us opportunities for promotions in the technicians role, or sometimes people will grow into like management and supervisory but especially where I work as the big, like a family vibe, so everybody's really rooting for each other to move up.

Peter Kazarinoff  3:40  
So it must feel good to be in that work environment that it sort of feels like a family all together.

Janaki  3:45  
Oh, yeah. I wasn't expecting that at all, actually. So I really liked that.

Peter Kazarinoff  3:51  
Johnny key Do you remember what it felt like your first day of work? What did it feel like the first day that you went into the fab?

Janaki  3:58  
I was so overwhelming. It's it felt like a maze and everything makes noise. Everything is beeping. It's a good beep or a bad beep. You know, there's the normal beeps and there's the alarm beeps that say I need your help. So when there's hundreds of tools all doing that, and you're walking and nothing's like in a straight path, I was pretty overwhelmed. The first week it took about two months just to even learn pathways through the fab.

Peter Kazarinoff  4:22  
So it sounded a little bit overwhelming. And there's just lots of sensory input like the first time everything's

Janaki  4:29  
Ooh, shiny. Ooh, shiny.

Peter Kazarinoff  4:30  
And Janaki now does it feel? Now when you go into work? Do you have that same feeling?

Janaki  4:37  
No, actually, I think it's awesome. Like, we get to use all the back hallways behind the machines, the they call it a day and a chase. So we take the chases secret passageways. I like to think of it through the fam so I know all the shortcuts from one area to another. And I actually think that's really fun.

Peter Kazarinoff  4:57  
So Janicki talked about like the bay and that Shea's wire there sort of like these two different areas of the fab. What's the purpose of that?

Janaki  5:06  
So the machines that the operators run, so they load the wafers into the machines to be processed, that's for the the in the bay, they all load the machines, and they have a lot of like big hallways. But in the back, that's where the maintenance happens. So when tools go down, or equipment, we call them tools, they're very big tools. And when the tools go down, that's where we get to set up and do repair work. Or sometimes that change filters, we do pump maintenance, a lot of hands on work.

Peter Kazarinoff  5:36  
So you're doing a whole bunch of this hands on work. Do you have to wear special clothing or protective equipment when you're working in the fab? Yes.

Janaki  5:46  
So everybody, when you come into the fab password bunny suit, so where I work, the equipment, people wear green bunny suits, and the operators were white, so you kind of visually can see who's who in there, because it's kind of hard to tell people apart, especially at persons, you just have this little window, you get to see everybody's eyes, but you can use to it. And then when we do repair work and any anything with the tools, we have PPE that we were so special smocks, gloves, face shields, all that kind of stuff.

Peter Kazarinoff  6:17  
Janaki, do you do work in shifts? Or do you have a nine to five day schedule five days a week?

Janaki  6:23  
So I've worked shift work. So we're really on three or four on four off. And that was probably one of the biggest things for me to get used to in the gym, because I've always worked like a nine to five before. So I wasn't prepared for how tired I would be after work. And not necessarily even physically, it's mentally tiring to work for 12 hours a day because you have to be on like on you. Why isn't this working? What could it be? And you're working with team mates who they have ideas. And so a lot of collaboration happens. So at the end of 12 hours, you're like, wow, that went by, and it felt like one hour, but I feel like I've been up for 36 hours, that kind of thing. 

Peter Kazarinoff  7:03  
So it sounds like work is always stimulating. And that can get tiring at the end of the day. Yeah. If you stay late, are there opportunities to be paid overtime?

Janaki  7:13  
Yes, we don't really stay late. I think that the limit is 13 hours a day. But there is opportunity to do overtime that like you can add extra days on the other side of the week on but built into the way we're paid. We get overtime after 10 hours every day. And then on days where we were four days in a row, the fourth days, all overtime. So the ability to make money as a technician is huge. Because if you have the energy and the availability to work more, they'll pay you.

Peter Kazarinoff  7:45  
So in addition to pay, does Analog Devices help out with things like health care or retirement? 

Janaki  7:52  
Oh, yeah, that was another huge thing. Before I work here, I worked for a small business for 15 years and small businesses don't always have the best benefit packages. So coming to a huge corporation, I was pretty much blown away by the health, vision Dental, we get all this PTO 401k matching tuition reimbursement, they really take care of you and want you to stay.

Peter Kazarinoff  8:15  
So Janaki, let's kind of switch gears and talk about how you got to where you are. Now, you mentioned that you worked for a small business beforehand, what was your work experience before your current role?

Janaki  8:28  
So I actually have a four year degree in economics and I am well during and after that I work for a small business here in Portland, and in an office just doing office work, which was a good experience. I love the people. But after 15 years, it got a little boring and there was definitely a pay ceiling there. So my husband actually was a technician at Intel at the time and we decided I think I want to go back to school and in pretty much in like a day it's time I started researching PCC, I saw there was an infirmary formational Zoom meeting because it was still during COVID. I logged in that night, registered the next day and started classes in like three weeks from now. It just happened like that. Wow,

Peter Kazarinoff  9:14  
What a whirlwind. So you enrolled at Portland Community College in the MT program. Could you briefly describe what does MT stand for and what do you learn in that program?

Janaki  9:25  
So it's the microelectronics program. The first year I think is more like electronics basics. When you have to take physics, chemistry, there's a lot of math to do. And then the second year for me is more hands on we do a lot of lab work. They actually have tools in the lab to work on so you have an understanding of how how tools work, what they look like what you'd even be looking at because it is pretty unfamiliar unless you know what know what's happening. Like before I met my husband, I didn't even know this career path existed. You Um, but I'm so glad I found it, because I'm definitely the kind of person who needs that kind of stimulation. And so I'm never bored at work. 

Peter Kazarinoff  10:07  
Janaki, what was the hardest part of school for you? You were going back to school after you were in the workforce for a while, what was difficult?

Janaki  10:16  
Um, so for the first few terms, I was working the previous job and going to school full time. So time management is huge. I felt like I had to give up a lot to be able to do both. But I knew it'd be worth it. And I took one term where I just went to school, but then drew PCC they have an excellent what, how do I say this, there's a lot of resources to get you into semiconductor, even while you're still on school. So I started an apprenticeship with Lam research, and was working just to 12 hour shifts, just even learning how to be in a fab while going to school. So it's just, it felt like I was living semiconductor all the time. I, like went to school and learned about it, I went to work and did it. Me and my husband talked about it all the time. It's just that was a lot. And so coming out through that into the end of it and having weekends again, it's just been amazing.

Peter Kazarinoff  11:08  
So as part of your community college program, you actually stepped into a fab, and worked in the fab while you were in school? That's pretty amazing. Yeah. How did Community College prepare you for where you are now?

Janaki  11:26  
I would say, I mean, I didn't, I didn't really know anything about what even Semiconductor was what the industry was like. So working in the labs with groups of people with some of the instructors have worked for semiconductor companies. So that gave me a window into what it would be like, which was very helpful. And then also getting hooked up with the apprenticeship with lamb then I started understanding, Oh, these are the this is like what they do, because lamb is a capital supplier for semiconductor companies, they build and sell the tools that they sell to Intel and analog and that kind of thing.

Peter Kazarinoff  12:04  
So you were interning or working as an apprentice at the company that then sells the equipment to the company that you work for? And now, that's kind of Yes, exactly. Yeah. So what's something unexpected about working as a technician that you only learned after you started?

Janaki  12:25  
I didn't, I guess it's like the how do I say this? Not so much the work the hands on work, because we did a lot of that in the lab, but the interpersonal relationships that you have with people in your group, so they separate the fab into areas, depending on what the tools do. So I work in on tools that are like single wafer wet, clean tools, so they process wafers one at a time with acid. So how that how they separate the tech step is that there's a group of like six of us that work on the back ends of the week, and I spend 12 hours a day with these people. And as you would expect, we're all very close now. And I have lifelong friends, for sure.

Peter Kazarinoff  13:09  
So that brings up a good point about working in the fab. And that's communication. Besides talking with folks that you work with, how else do you communicate in the Fab?

Janaki  13:20  
We do a lot of written communication, everything that we do with the tools as far as repair work, and preventative maintenance is recorded in the computer system. So and that is, goes up to the engineers, and then our management. So a lot of technical data has to be transcribed that way, and it has to be correct, you have to be able to write in full sentences that make sense. So you can explain the troubleshooting steps that you've already taken. Because a lot of times you don't get to fix the problem. You just get so many steps. And you're like, Well, I know it's not these things, and here's why I know and then you pass it down to the nightshift guys, and then they can go look at it. And they get to do their troubleshooting steps. And sometimes it comes back to you the next morning. But it's it's definitely a lot of teamwork. So you have to have a really good handle on written communications. So

Peter Kazarinoff  14:11  
Having both verbal and written communication and being able to be both a good listener, and being able to be a good reader, all of those things sound like they're important.

Janaki  14:21  
Absolutely. Yeah, being able to comprehend, do it and then explain what you did to the next group of people coming in is like the crux of the job pretty much

Peter Kazarinoff  14:35  
Janicki How did your life change when you became a technician? What's different now compared to when you were a student at Portland Community College?

Janaki  14:44  
Well, I make more money, of course, but I would say it has really given me a sense of purpose. I feel like I do things that affect how things work at my job, even though I'm just Just a cog in the machine. When I'm there, I get to bring tools up and fix them. And just, there's a really good sense of accomplishment at the end of the day when you fix something and you're like, I made that work, and now it can make more chips.

Peter Kazarinoff  15:17  
Well, Janicki, do you have a final call to action for students or people who want to transition their careers and work like a technician like you in the semiconductor industry?

Janaki  15:28  
Yeah, I would say that. Don't, don't wait. For me. I came into this older I had already been to college had had an adult job. And I knew that job wasn't for me anymore. And so I just did it. And I'm so happy that I did. It doesn't matter. I don't know, there's a lot of conceptions, preconceptions about people who are mechanics or work on robotics. And I never have like, done any, like hands on work like that before in a work environment. But you know what? I can do it. And I just went to school and they taught me how.

Peter Kazarinoff  16:05  
Well Janaki thank you so much for sharing your story with me and talking technicians. You're welcome.

Janaki  16:11  
Thanks for having me.

Peter Kazarinoff  16:12  
Please keep in touch.

Janaki  16:14  
I will

Peter Kazarinoff  16:19  
Talking Technicians is produced by MNT-EC, the Micro Nano Technology Education Center through financial support from the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education grant program. Opinions expressed on this podcast do not necessarily represent those of the National Science Foundation. Join the conversation: If you are a working technician, or know someone who is, reach out to us at info@talkingtechnicians.org. We're always looking out for great guests to share more stories with you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai