Stephen is a Manufacturing Equipment Technician (MET) at Intel in Hillsboro, Oregon. Stephen discusses his journey from Minneapolis to working at Intel and shares insights into his day-to-day responsibilities involving the maintenance and troubleshooting of equipment used in semiconductor manufacturing. Stephen talks about shift schedules, salary ranges, professional growth opportunities, and the importance of communication and safety in his job. Stephen also shares advice for individuals considering a career transition into the semiconductor industry.
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: https://www.pcc.edu/
Jobs at Intel: https://jobs.intel.com/
Stephen is a Manufacturing Equipment Technician (MET) at Intel in Hillsboro, Oregon. Stephen discusses his journey from Minneapolis to working at Intel and shares insights into his day-to-day responsibilities involving the maintenance and troubleshooting of equipment used in semiconductor manufacturing. Stephen talks about shift schedules, salary ranges, professional growth opportunities, and the importance of communication and safety in his job. Stephen also shares advice for individuals considering a career transition into the semiconductor industry.
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: https://www.pcc.edu/
Jobs at Intel: https://jobs.intel.com/
Peter Kazarinoff 0:02
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 at 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 Stephen. Stephen is a technician at Intel and Hillsboro, Oregon outside Portland. Stephen, welcome to Talking Technicians.
Stephen 0:51
Thanks, Peter. Glad to be here.
Peter Kazarinoff 0:53
So Stephen, do you live in Portland or closer to Intel that's out in Hillsborough?
Stephen 0:53
I live just outside of Portland in Hillsborough. And it's really nice having a five minute commute to work.
Peter Kazarinoff 1:06
And how long have you been here and what brought you to the Portland and Hillsborough area?
Stephen 1:12
I've been here for almost two years. Originally, I'm from Minneapolis, Minnesota. And I took a road trip out here. And I fell in love with the area, the geography, the weather, the climate, but I needed a job. Well, in my experiences. In college, I had a friend. He was an electrical engineer, and he had a job at Intel. And he said, Hey, why don't you come work for us? And I said, Sure. And now I'm here.
Peter Kazarinoff 1:38
So let's talk a little bit about that work. What's your job title? And what do you do day to day? What would you tell people that you do at work?
Stephen 1:47
So I am what is called an MET. It's called a Manufacturing Equipment T echnician. I basically, what I do is I replace the insides of a chamber that deals with making a processor, and I take the old stuff out, I put the new stuff in, I help with troubleshooting, diagnosing. It's kind of what I do at Intel.
Peter Kazarinoff 2:08
So Stephen, when you say you're working with this tool and working with this chamber, for folks that aren't used to talking about the semiconductor industry and the processes that they do, what do you mean by tool? And what do you mean by chamber?
Stephen 2:23
What I do at Intel is I tell people that I work on very fancy pizza ovens. CPUs are usually square, and they're cut out of a wafer, which is like a metallic disk, those metal discs are sent all around the fab and they go through these different processes. There could be laying metal on top of it, there could be laser laser etching, there could be an erosion of the material that's taken off of it. And the one that I work on lays a small layer of metal on it. And that's inside of a kind of like a pizza oven, it's a very hot chamber, and chemicals are sprayed across it. And that's kind of how the chip is made. So the chamber that I work on, it gets hot, there's chemicals involved. And after so many of those wafers get made. There's a buildup of residue kind of and or say there might be a buildup of defects that happen. So I go in, take the old stuff out. And we basically rebuild the chamber with new insights.
Peter Kazarinoff 3:21
That sounds like a fun, interesting job because you get to work with some tools, and you've got this big pieces of equipment that you're doing, when you first go into work, what's kind of the first thing that happens. And then at the end of the day, what's kind of the last thing that happens for you?
Stephen 3:38
Well, first thing I like to do is grab a cup of coffee. But then what we do is something called passed down passed out is it's from the previous shift any information that they kind of went over the things that they had to deal with, is now brought to our attention. So we can kind of continue the project. The other thing that we do is talk about quality and safety concerns. Intel take safety, extremely importantly, our safety is number one at Intel. The tools are very important, the work that gets done is very important. But above all its safety. So sometimes throughout the week, or previously in different areas of the FAB, a safety thing might occur. And we kind of go over that and how those things can be addressed. The other thing that we talked about are quality concerns, which are maybe something that was put in the fab incorrectly, or some way that the chambers were built or the tools were built incorrectly. So we kind of go over concerns that can impact the product that we put out. From there. We talked to some of the engineers about some of the projects that are being laid down. Our manager might talk about concerns or any issues. And then we kind of go into work. And I said that I'm an MET as technicians at Intel, there's kind of these two roles to the job. One is more of the equipment side, which is the MET and then there's the ops side. The MET is The one that deals with kind of like the hand tools on the tools, I said tools twice, but we call the the actual machines that we work on, we call them tools. And then we use hand tools to kind of work on it. And then the other side of the job is more of the operation side, which kind of handles the fleet of machines and manages tool errors, and also kind of handles the data, the data that comes in and make sure that everything is looking good.
Peter Kazarinoff 5:25
Yeah, so this idea of passed down, that sort of means you get kind of a window into who was the technician before you and what they did? And then at the end of the shift, do you kind of do the same thing? Because whoever comes next, they need to know what you did during your shift?
Stephen 5:43
Yes, exactly. Yep. Next shift comes in. And we kind of talk about what we did, and how the projects are ongoing.
Peter Kazarinoff 5:51
So Stephen, it sounds like then this is shift-based work. How does your schedule work? And do you get any differentials if you work special kinds of shifts?
Stephen 6:02
Yes. Good question. I work night shift. And with that comes, I think it's about 16% more money. Our shifts are 12-hour based. So I started about 7:30 at night, and I work until 8am, the next day. Day shift, they don't get the differential, and they work 7:30am to about eight o'clock PM.
Peter Kazarinoff 6:25
Stephen, can you provide a ballpark salary for your job as a technician or somebody else working in the semiconductor industry as a technician?
Stephen 6:34
If you have a similar experience that I have, I could probably say you'd maybe make 55 to $80,000 a year. And that can go that depends on the differential, I can go over the experiences. The pay kind of goes as if you were in the military. It's grade based, so you kind of get assigned a grade based on your experiences. And then that is that is assigned a pay scale.
Peter Kazarinoff 6:59
Are there opportunities for professional growth at Intel?
Stephen 7:03
Yes. So the more you learn about the tool set, you can advance in levels, and that would give you access to higher pace, you can learn other tool modules, you could come up with a really cool idea that saves time, or it saves energy. And that might come with some nice bonus, or it might come up with something that kind of adds to your what we call them insights to make yourself a more valuable person. Intel also really focuses on like you owning your future, you owning your advancement. And one of the ways that Intel helps with that is they'll pay for you to go to school, if it helps with the job that you're doing. So in my instance, I'm you're I'm now going to school for mechanical engineering. So once I pay or once I passed the class, Intel will reimburse me if I do it all I did. Okay.
Peter Kazarinoff 7:56
So Stephen, you're telling me you're working as a technician - but right now your employer is paying you now to become an engineer. That's a pretty great deal. It sounds like.
Stephen 8:07
Oh, it's an amazing deal. Yes.
Peter Kazarinoff 8:09
Well, so let's talk about this experience before your current role. You moved kind of across the country to work as a technician at Intel. What was your education or work experience before you got here?
Stephen 8:22
Peter, I'm going to tell you right now, I've been all over the place. So originally, I decided I wanted to be an engineer. And I was studying electrical engineering. This was years ago, I was studying electrical engineering, and mathematics. Well, then I kind of fell in love with design. And I thought, oh, I want to be a graphic designer. So I got my bachelor's degree in graphic design. At the time I was working in restaurants. That's kind of the the route that I was taking. Well, then, after I graduated, I wanted to go into more of like the creative area. So I was a photo editor. And I was actually a wedding DJ at a company. And I was in charge of editing photos. I was in charge of DJing. for weddings, I had a really interesting experience or experiences that I was doing. But with design, I decided and with my interest in engineering, I decided that I wanted to go more into the mechanical side with working for Intel, with the previous experiences that I have. Kind of the route that I'm going.
Peter Kazarinoff 9:25
Yeah, that makes sense. So when you were back in school, what kinds of things that you did in school has now helped you in your current role as a technician?
Stephen 9:37
One of the big things was, I own a motorcycle, and working on the motorcycle, really helped with a really helped me say, Hey, I'm really good with mechanical aptitude. And then it's a lot of fun working on something like that. figuring out what's going on the issues with it that you kind of I have to face.
Peter Kazarinoff 10:01
Yeah. So you showed that you had some experience working with mechanical systems and doing some problem solving. So those sort of sound like technical skills, are there other things that you need for your job, some people call this these soft skills or professional skills?
Stephen 10:17
Um, I would be - I would say that the biggest thing is communication and how you can articulate a problem. So kind of like how I mentioned with pastedown, you need to be able to talk about the problems that you go through, you need to be able to, on paper, write the problems that you are facing, and the troubleshooting involved. Because what happens is the engineers might not be working on the tools that day, but maybe they will be looking months ahead of time. And when they look at those previous documents, they need to be able to see how you articulated the problem and how you went about and fixed it. Weeks later, you might even be asked the same questions about the work that you were doing. So you have to be able to not necessarily remember what you did. But you have to be able to look at what you did, and explain the problem really well.
Peter Kazarinoff 11:12
So it sounds like being a good communicator, and especially communication and writing. And being clear and concise in that writing is important to your day to day work. Very. So Stephen, do you remember what it felt like the first time you stepped into Intel to be a technician? What did it feel like your very first day of work?
Stephen 11:36
It was a little overwhelming. The Fab is it's a huge place, there's a lot going on, we have machines overhead that are carrying wafers and dropping them down at different tools. Everybody is in a, a fab suit, a clean suit. So you know, you don't really know, you have to go on face alone and how they walk to figure out who everybody is. But everyone kind of looks the same. But it's, it's a really interesting manufacturing experience, because it's not dirty. And it's not messy, and it's not as loud as you might think. And it's very safe and orderly.
Peter Kazarinoff 12:11
So Stephen, what's something unexpected about working as a technician that you only learned after you started after that first day? What surprised you?
Stephen 12:23
What surprised me the most was, it's extremely valuable that you take your time with your work. They they want the work to be done, but it wants but they want it done correctly. You You don't want something going in wrong, you want to be able to do it correctly. And not just that, but also pay close attention to the parks that you're putting in. So if you notice any defects in the metals, that stuff is important. So it's important that you you take your time, and you evaluate what you're doing, instead of just doing work and, and getting it all wrapped up and sent out. So you can you know, you're not being overworked as much as you might think, which is, in my opinion, extremely valuable. And also safety, how safe you have to be how big of a concern that is.
Peter Kazarinoff 13:09
Stephen, how did your life change when you became a technician, you mentioned that you had a bunch of different jobs, including things like graphic design and being a DJ. But what was different about your life, once you became a technician?
Stephen 13:24
The work itself is interesting, because the semiconductor field is a very complex area. People like to say computers are magic. And it kind of is the manufacturing process itself is kind of magic. It's very complex. So wrapping your mind around how big this area is this field that goes into making a chip, and how many different jobs it impacts. It's very eye opening, I'd say.
Peter Kazarinoff 13:52
Stephen, we talked earlier that you're now going back to school, and doing some more work in school while you're a technician, what's different now or How is school different for you, now that you're doing it as a full time technician?
Stephen 14:08
I would say that I'm on a mission. Before in school, I maybe didn't have an idea of what I wanted to do. Or I was a little more. Maybe I want to do this, maybe I want to do that. I don't know what I want to do. And now I'm on a mission to complete it. Move forward with it as as fast as possible. But also knowing that once I get that degree, I can go in a different, a lot of different areas. And so right now, you're just very focused on finishing them.
Peter Kazarinoff 14:40
Stephen, what advice would you give to current students, either folks in your class or maybe folks who are going to enroll in community college who want to transition careers and work in the semiconductor industry as a technician? What advice would you give them?
Stephen 14:58
If you're in high school, I recommend maybe finding as many opportunities as you can to work on anything technical or mechanical. I would suggest looking at those jobs, for example, Intel right away, because maybe you won't directly work for the company until but you might work for a contracting company. And that can lead into working for Intel. And knowing that they'll they'll pay for school can definitely help you save a lot of money on that route. I would also say that the semiconductor industry, it can be a lot of work, but it's not as demanding, as you might think it pays very well. It's a complex job. But there's a lot of good, there's a lot of benefits to it. I would say if you're, if you're in a dead end opportunity, it's definitely a field that would cater to a lot of different types of people.
Peter Kazarinoff 15:55
Stephen, do you have a final call to action for students or people listening to this podcast, who want to transition careers and work as a technician like you?
Stephen 16:05
If you feel like you're stagnant in your job, move on, get out of there, do something different with your life. We don't have much time here so it's best to embrace what we are given.
Peter Kazarinoff 16:18
Well, Stephen, thank you so much for being on Talking Technicians and talking with me about both your background and what you're doing now as a technician in the semiconductor industry.
Stephen 16:28
Absolutely. Thank you.
Peter Kazarinoff 16:35
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.