Talking Technicians

S01-E10 Tuff is a technician at Micron

June 14, 2021 MNT-EC Season 1 Episode 10
Talking Technicians
S01-E10 Tuff is a technician at Micron
Show Notes Transcript

Tuff works as a technician at Micron in Lehi, Utah. He earned a 1-year certificate from a community college microscopy program and secured an internship. From there, Tuff advanced into a full-time role as an equipment technician. Hear about how much you could make as a technician like Tuff and how even high-tech factories have low-tech problems.


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:


The Micro Nano Technology Education Center (MNT-EC): https://micronanoeducation.org/


https://jobs.micron.com/ Micron’s official site for job offerings. Tuff gets emails of technician openings monthly.


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

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, he'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 Tuff, Tuff works at Micron in Lehi, Utah. Tuff, welcome to talking technicians. 

Tuff  0:48  
Thanks, Peter. Happy to be here. 

Peter Kazarinoff  0:51  
Tell me about yourself. Where do you live? And how long have you been there for?

Tuff  0:55  
So I live in Eagle Mountain, Utah close to Lehi where I work. I recently moved. But basically, it's just if you're not from Utah, great scenery in nature. But it's pretty hot and summers and gets really cold in the wintertime and snowy so you kind of have to have a car that's good. Year round, basically. But everyone comes here for the tour. Definitely.

Peter Kazarinoff  1:21  
Is there anyone else in your household?

Tuff  1:24  
Yeah, I live with my mom, we just both rent this house. I get downstairs she gets upstairs. Pretty good deal.

Peter Kazarinoff  1:30  
Great. So where do you work and what's your job title?

Tuff  1:35  
So I work at micron and Lehi will also go by fab two. I'm currently in metrology area. My job title is Equipment Technician. And metrology is the measurements for the whole process line. So the thicknesses of films, the critical dimensions of lines and features on the wafers and electrical properties like resistance and implant destruction from those kinds of processes. So I kind of make sure that all of our measurement tools are up to qualifications, all the PMS are done, which are preventative maintenance. So if we like to swap out lamps for say, before they die, just so that we don't have to react to it, we just do the preventative maintenance. So I do that.

Peter Kazarinoff  2:29  
And for those that might not know what does Micron do, and what is a FAB?

Tuff  2:34  
So Micron makes memory. So like DRAM like you put in your computer, so your random access memory, but we also make solid state drives. So our newest product was our x 100 stuff based on our new product. And so that's what we're making here at our facility. And a fab is just, just kind of like short for where we make the product. So it's all in a cleanroom environment we're a, I think a level 100 fab or something like that, or class 100. Basically, it's just how many particles we can have per square foot of air. And the fab is where we make all the product in that cleaner. And like I said, and it travels throughout an automated system from tool, to tool and enclosed FOUP's, which are front opening unified pods. The FAB is just where we make all the product.

Peter Kazarinoff  3:28  
And besides your role in metrology, what do other technicians do at micron?

Tuff  3:34  
So there's a lot of different process areas. So there's metrology, which we do all the measurements, right. And then there's loads of other areas such as diffusion, CVD, PVD, implant, CMP, wet process, dry etch, and RDA. And all of these areas do something specific for building our products. So I could go into details all of those, but we probably be here for 30 minutes talking about them. But all of these areas, work in conjunction to eventually get our products to probe where we make sure everything's working correctly. And then they package it all up. We ship it out and gets made into the chips where you can buy it commercially.

Peter Kazarinoff  4:24  
Do you work alone or do you work in a team?

Tuff  4:28  
So I work in a team - metrology. We're comprised of process technicians and equipment technicians. The process technicians handle all of the automation side I guess you would say and like handling the software side with the movements of how the wafers are tracked and ran on tools. Whereas the equipment technicians, like myself, just maintain the tools and help recover tools when they may have an error, or like I said earlier, need preventative maintenance done are qualifications, right?

Peter Kazarinoff  5:03  
And do you work with other levels of personnel like engineers or scientists? Or do you mostly work with other technicians?

Tuff  5:11  
Yeah, so I work with engineers, basically, everyone that I work with has an engineering degree, whether it be chemical, material science, electrical, mechanical, any of those really, various backgrounds amongst that, that have, they've worked other places. But yes, I do work with lots of engineers, we have a shift engineer that's on shift, because that's what I am a shift worker. And they don't do a ton more different work than the regular process technicians. But they kind of take lead of the shift and will take on a little harder tasks. And so I work with engineers, but not in my area or do anything kind of crazy in that aspect.

Peter Kazarinoff  5:58  
You mentioned that you do shift work, how long your shifts, and how many do you do per week?

Tuff  6:03  
So currently, I'm on night shifts on the back end of the week. And we have four shifts throughout the week, front end, which is Sunday to Tuesday, and every other Wednesday, so three days, and then four days a week. And then there's the night shift to acompanied with that, that works, the night shift. And then back end of the week would be Wednesday, or Tuesday to Saturday. And then the night shift, each of those shifts that you work every day are 12 hour shifts, so 6am to 6pm, or 6pm to 6am, as in my case for night shift, and I'm on back end of the week. So I work every Wednesday through Saturday, and then or through Friday, and then every other week gets through Saturday. So our twelves three days a week, and then four days a week, and then just flip flops like that every week. So I get my 80 hour paychecks.

Peter Kazarinoff  7:02  
And at Micron, you mentioned that there are a number of different technicians, what might a starting technician expect to make when they come out of community college?

Tuff  7:12  
So when I was brought on full-time for my internship, I started out in my current position metrology, an equipment technician earning $50,000 a year base salary. And throughout that, and how well you do with their own evaluation of that you can get bonuses and raises now depend on how well management perceives that so but a base salary starting for my exact position was $50,000 a year.

Peter Kazarinoff  7:43  
And do you have any opportunities for advancement to move up at Micron?

Tuff  7:48  
Oh, yeah. There's always people moving around. They're really big about their culture there and about learning and knowledge and increasing that knowledge. I've had, I've switched shifts a couple different times, but we've had multiple managers come in and go to different areas before I was there. But in the time I've been there, my - my manager above my supervisor up transitioned to a completely different area that I don't think he had any prior knowledge of but a transition over there if you want to do that. And I know a lot of other stories, especially my facility of people just wanting to try something different. And they're able to transfer over to do something like that, as well as above to managerial positions and owner positions like that.

Peter Kazarinoff  8:41  
How has your life changed since he became a technician and moved out of school? What's different now?

Tuff  8:48  
Pretty much kind of just like, thrown into just working all the time. I'm still going through school, because I still don't have my degree yet. I'm still working towards my associates. I luckily got in working here. In a really cool way. I started out doing an internship, they brought me on from SLCC after I got my microscopy certificate, which we can talk about a minute. And I started as an intern, they wanted me to do a year round internship as compared to some they bring on it's only a summer internship, like some college students don't take classes for the summer. So they come work in Micron for the the summer semester as an intern and do a project and they leave in the fall to go back to school. But for me, they brought me on as a year intern, kind of as like a pre-hire type thing to kind of feel me out a lot more than just a summer intern and my trainer by the time or the two months before my internship was up actually left and so they extended his position to me and hired me full time. So I was really lucky to have that happen, but it was really cool.

Peter Kazarinoff  9:59  
So you mentioned that you're at school, at SLCC, what's SLCC? And what was your educational background before moving on to Micron?

Tuff  10:07  
So SLCC, forgot you're not in Utah, so "slick" is SLCC or Salt Lake Community College and they're a community college and they have multiple campuses throughout kind of Salt Lake Valley. I attend the Taylorsville Campus one that's where Wes is with all his nano classes. And that's really where I got hooked on it. I was kind of not sure what I wanted to do. And then took the intro to nanotechnology class he offered and it kind of just catapulted into getting the microscopy certificate and pushed me away over to getting an internship and getting hired.

Peter Kazarinoff  10:50  
And what was your work experience before becoming a technician at Micron?

Tuff  10:56  
Pretty, like average teenager, you could say. I worked at a dealership for a couple months. And before that, I worked in a home depot as like a technician that would get all the carts and help people load their concrete, I guess. And so I really didn't have any professional or manufacturing experience. And so the fact I got the internship was amazing. And then the fact I got hired was even more insane because, I mean, I don't like working but I love working here. I didn't like working before, but the environment and the people and my day to day job is just so intriguing. I guess that I just really like what I do. And so it's awesome.

Peter Kazarinoff  11:42  
You mentioned that you started at Micron in an internship. How did you secure that first internship because it seems really key to your position now?

Tuff  11:50  
Yeah, so before Micron owned this facility, it was a joint venture, named IM Flash, that's I as an indigo, M as in Mike and then flash. Coincidentally, they were making flash memory. So that's the name. But the joint venture was between Intel and Micron. And they were making the product and it dissolved. Well, sorry, let me back up. I got the internship to IM Flash because IM Flashed was really involved with SLCC and their microscopy, program and certificate. And they had hired interns before, through that same program that I got hired as an intern. So as I was going through my intern for my certificate and was getting close to completion, some recruiter from IM Flash was looking for metrology students or to hire in metrology. And they had always come to SLCC for interns, and they had that turned out successful in the past. So they reached out again, and all of us kind of applied for the internship. And we all interviewed for it. And I got it. There was, I think there wasn't a lot of us that were taking these classes, I think six in total. So not a lot. And I don't know what it's like now, I haven't really been on campus and haven't taken them I don't need to - but, so they reached out from IM Flash to to SLCC, and then I got it. And so that's how I was able to secure that is they're pretty paired with Salt Lake Community College there with their microscopy lab in the Taylor's Campus.

Peter Kazarinoff  13:40  
What's something unexpected about being a technician that you only learned once you started?

Tuff  13:47  
So something unexpected would be probably the immense price tag that is associated with all of the manufacturing that happens there. Just walking around you, I mean, your jaw kind of hits the floor or you're staring at the ceiling, because that's kind of a joke we throw around. I say that because we have an automated system that transports all the material along the ceiling in the FOUP's, as I said earlier, they're basically just containers that hold the wafers. And these robots run along tracks. So they run if you know, you know, they're new because they stare at the ceiling, but just you don't really realize how expensive things are until you've kind of been there for a little bit, kind of got to jist especially as an equipment technician and ordering parts, you see the price tag. So, the major thing was just like how expensive things are like in the photo area photo um photolithography, where they're basically like outlining the, the little features on the wafers. The big scanner tools are about the length of a school bus, and about $100 million a pop. And we have maybe 20 in one photo bay and 10, 15 and another photo bay. And so it's pretty, it's a pretty penny for those guys. And, you know, I didn't know that walking around at first, but then you know, my coworkers are like, Oh, yeah, those are pretty expressive.

Peter Kazarinoff  15:24  
How does that high amount of technology affect your work day to day?

Tuff  15:30  
Um, it's kind of interesting, because I work around such expensive tools, yet, we still run into like generic manufacturing problems, and IT problems, which is funny, like systems going down and software not working correctly. So it's funny to be in such an advanced, like facility. And like, it just being around that and still kind of dealing with the nuances of just like, technology, it's funny that way.

Peter Kazarinoff  16:02  
What advice would you give to current students or people who want to transition careers to work in the nanotechnology industry, like you do?

Tuff  16:10  
Um, I've heard, too, like, as you're going through school to try and micro-certify yourself. So like I did, I kinda wasn't sure what I wanted to do. And then I saw that this certificate, I had to take two extra classes that deviated from my degree, and I could get the certificate. And I had it before I had my degree, and I was able to score a job there. So I really think this is the certificate was kind of like a big step in the foot in the door, I guess you could say, as well as just kind of being persistent. Your tier, I heard one story of Micron attends events, you know, though, attend stuff in Silicon Valley, Silicon Slopes here that they like to call it. And just kind of getting out there, and just kind of talking to them. And just coming back year after year, if it doesn't work, you know, just like being persistent. Because if you talk to the same guy every year, they'll probably remember you when they come back, right? Because I've heard that before. And I've heard of people adding jobs like that. So, you know, certifications, being persistent, don't give up if it doesn't happen the first time. You know, usually, you know, if they're hiring people, it's kind of discouraging if you don't get hired, right? So but of being persistent, it's just like watch the job boards for what for what you want. Micron is really good at sending out job postings. I provided a link for Micron's, like direct job board that Micron posts to and they post for any job. So there is IT software engineer there's equipment technicians, process technicians, facility people, warehouse people, there's always jobs happening at Micron. Not to say that people are always leaving Micron, but there's FABs need a lot of people and we're running a lot of product, because there's a lot of things happening all the time. This industry is always changing, you're always learning stuff, product is changing, we're running new product running tests. So there's a lot of stuff happening, a lot of people need jobs, and a lot of people need to help with that. So just watch the job boards and for new listings and stuff like that, that you may want to do. Um, additionally, just get involved in - in the field that you're interested in and want to work in. So if you want to get into the semiconductor industry, like Micron is or Intel, right, AMD stuff like that- just like, follow, follow them on Instagram, follow, follow their social medias now go to the events that they host are part of, you know, kind of get into that environment and kind of get used to it because the more knowledge you pose with all that, I mean, in my interview, they were asking me how an SEM worked or a  scanning electron microscope and how the column worked and all that. So they kind of want you to know what you're working with. So, you know, just being in it, being around it and involved and just persistent, you know, that's most likely probably gonna help ya.

Peter Kazarinoff  19:31  
That's a great piece of advice. And we'll make sure to include those links in the show notes at the bottom of the podcast. So tuff, thank you so much for sharing your story about the education that you've gone through and about the work that you do.

Tuff  19:46  
Oh, yeah, of course. Thank you for having me. 

Peter Kazarinoff  19:48  
Please- please keep in touch. 

Tuff  19:50  
Oh, yeah, I will. 

Peter Kazarinoff  19:52  
Bye now. 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 working technician or know someone who is, reached out to us at info@talking technicians.org. We're always looking out for great guests to share more stories with you.