Diversity and inclusion in semiconductor industry

Posted on September 14, 2021 Updated on September 14, 2021

There was a session on diversity and inclusion in semiconductor R&D at the Connecting Heterogenous Systems summit organized by SEMI Europe. Ms. Cassandra Melvin, SEMI Europe, introduced the diversity roadmap. It includes campaigns to promote best and next practices, diversity council, and talks at Semicon Europa. SEMI will also award the industry leader for diversity and inclusion in 2022.

Ms. Beate Burkhart, Head of Materials Innovation Pipeline, Semiconductor Solutions, Merck, presented on diversity and inclusion in semiconductor R&D.

Every day, Merck’s nearly 58,000 employees work in 66 countries to make a positive difference to millions of people’s lives by creating more joyful and sustainable ways to live. Diversity is talked about much more today. Today, 67 percent job seekers say that a diverse workforce is important to them when considering a company’s offer for employment, according to Glassdoor. Further, 57 percent of existing employees want their companies to do more to increase workforce diversity.

77 percent of the semiconductor leaders think that we have talent shortage now! R&D investment is the top priority of most companies. There are 25 percent females in semiconductor industry! Attracting women in STEM and young generation are hot topics. Finally, 54 percent APAC talents prefer local Asian companies.

Merck is driving D&I Initiatives as a top priority. Diversity is a clear business need for Merck. Merck is driving many corporate initiatives, but ultimately, diversity in teams can only grow when everyone accepts their responsibility to keep unconscious bias in mind when hiring and developing team members, and challenge themselves to think outside the box. Merck has a Material Innovation Pipeline (MIP) leadership team. MIP is a diverse organization working in a multi-cultural environment.

There is room for improvement. We can increase the share of women. We can increase diversity. We can increase share of colleagues with Asian origin in the global semiconductor solutions R&D leadership and extend the team. Merck is driving D&I initiatives as a top priority. Diversity is a clear business need for Merck. We are all responsible for tackling it.

CEO-level priority
Ms. Christine Pelissier, BLM SEMI Europe, Edwards, presented on Knowledge + Action = Change. Today, diversity and inclusion is a CEO-level priority and considered important throughout all levels of management. Work-life balance, family, and individual wellness are part of total employee experience. Companies measure inclusion, diversity, and lack of bias in all recruitment processes, promotion, pay, and other talent practices. Leaders are promoted on their ability to lead inclusively.

Diversity and inclusion goes beyond education to focus on debiasing business processes, and holding leaders accountable for inclusive behavior. Companies hold managers accountable for creating an inclusive culture, using metrics to compare them against each other.

There is the ADKAR change management model for D&I. These are awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, and re-inforcement. At Edwards, new D&I goals and action plan was agreed. In 2021, inclusion works was launched, first employee resource group created, mitigating bias training launched, best practices guide launched, inclusive language steering group started, inclusive leaders development for senior leadershio team created, wellbeing strategy launched, and new D&I questions introduced.

Edwards’ D&I goals are to achieve year-to-year increase in the percentage of women, and to achieve 30 percent representation by 2030. To increase visibility, awareness, and understanding of diversity. To foster an inclusive culture across Edwards with employee awareness and contribution. Finally, to understand and minimize the potential bias in people processes. She presented five case studies across inclusion, education, leadership, bias, and language.

More women to work in high-tech
Ms. Mor Azarya, Senior Director, R&D Central Engineering, EPC, KLA, presented on building a foundational employee resource group (ERG) for supporting and promoting women in a global semiconductor equipment company.

KLA is in semiconductor process control. Systems find defects and variations that affect chip performance. There was the establishment of EPC – Electronics, Packaging, and Components group.

It’s still the standard to be the only woman in the room. Its still standard to get management comments. The environment still apply the pressure. We need more women graduates in STEM, more women to work in high-tech, more companies need to encourage awareness.

KLA established the WISE ERG in 2018. Diversity employee resource groups are encouraged by HR, and established and managed by employees. The USA team was set up in 2018, followed by Israel in 2019, India in 2020, and Belgium and the UK in 2021. WISE is women in STEM empowered.

WISE goal is to empower women in semiconductors. We need to increase the percentage of women CV for open positions. We also increased percentage of women in key positions. We are contributing to increase the percentage of women in STEM. We are gradually making the change through awareness and actions.