Which degrees work in a chip fab, and what does each one do there?

In one sentence: a chip fab does not hire just one kind of degree. Whatever your branch or major, from electrical or electronics (EE, ECE, EEE) to chemical engineering, chemistry, materials science, physics, mechanical, industrial engineering or computer science, there are jobs that people with it commonly do. The difference is what you face every day: wafers, tools, data or the whole production line.

Why does a fab need so many degrees?

To make a chip, a wafer goes through hundreds of steps: light prints a pattern onto it, a plasma eats away the material that is not wanted, very thin films are grown on the surface one layer at a time, the surface is polished flat, and the wafer is cleaned and measured again and again.

Each of those belongs to a different subject:

• Chemical reactions, gases and liquid chemicals: chemistry and chemical engineering.
• Plasma, light, vacuum and how thin films behave: physics and materials science.
• Whether the transistors switch and how much they leak: electrical and electronics engineering.
• The tools themselves, with their robot arms, pumps, valves and sensors: mechanical and mechatronics.
• Huge amounts of measurement data and many lots to schedule every day: statistics, computer science and industrial engineering.

So most jobs in a fab sit where one of these subjects meets the wafers.

Which jobs does each degree usually lead to?

This is the match you see most often in university career pages for the semiconductor industry and in government occupation guides. Plenty of people cross over, so read it as a map, not a rule.

Degree	Common jobs	What you work with every day
Chemical engineering, chemistry, materials science or metallurgy	Process engineer (etch, thin film, wet clean, CMP, furnace), process integration	Wafers: recipes, film thickness and composition, measurement results
Physics, electrical or electronics (devices)	Process integration, device engineering, litho, implant, yield analysis	How the transistors behave electrically, WAT numbers, the wafer map
Electrical or electronics (circuits and test)	Test engineer, product engineer	Test programs, test machines, the result for every chip
Mechanical, mechatronics	Equipment engineer, Facilities engineer	Tools, vacuum and robot arms; in Facilities, the gases, chemicals, water, power and exhaust
Industrial or production engineering	Production control, Manufacturing	The whole line: capacity, scheduling, delivery dates
Computer science, statistics, data science	Automation, manufacturing systems, yield analysis	Data and code: what drifted, and how to let machines make the call

Two common examples:

• Process engineers often come from chemical engineering, materials or chemistry, because what they tune every day is chemistry and material conditions. How they split the work with equipment engineers is in What's the difference between a process engineer and an equipment engineer?
• Process integration engineers string hundreds of steps together into a transistor that works, and often have a physics, materials or device background. See What does a process integration engineer do?

Is electrical or ECE always the best choice?

Not necessarily. Electrical and electronics graduates are the largest group on the chip design side. In a fab they often go into devices, test and equipment, but chemical and materials graduates are just as central on the process side. Design and manufacturing are two very different paths: see VLSI design vs working in a fab: what's the difference?

Also, much of the hands-on work in a fab, such as running the tools, walking the line and being the first to respond when a tool has a problem, is done by technicians and operators, often with a high-school or technical diploma, vocational training or a related associate degree. Engineers usually have at least a bachelor's degree, and jobs on the R&D line or close to device physics often ask for a master's or more.

How can you prepare while you are still studying?

• A course in semiconductor device physics: how a transistor switches on and off and why it leaks. Almost every job uses it.
• An introduction to semiconductor manufacturing: which steps a wafer goes through and what each one does.
• Statistics and design of experiments: a fab's daily life is reading data, with control charts, designed experiments (DOE) and finding the cause in a pile of numbers.
• A cleanroom lab, if your university has one: having worn a cleanroom suit once and done litho with your own hands gives you something real to talk about in an interview.
• Knowing it is a 24-hour job: the tools never stop, so many roles involve shifts or on-call duty. See Why do chip fabs run 24 hours a day?

Still deciding? Watch a day first

Many people get stuck because they do not know what each job actually involves day to day. A job ad says "responsible for process improvement". It does not mention the phone call at 02:47, being asked in the morning meeting when the tool will be back, or which lots you have to hand over before you go home.

In fab24hr

A day in the fab in fab24hr has 31 roles on the R&D line, in the production fab and at a test-and-assembly house: process, equipment, process integration, Manufacturing, Facilities, quality, Production control, masks, test, assembly and the customer liaison, each with four shifts. Use the table above to play the role closest to your degree first, then switch to a completely different one and see how the same fab and the same chip look from there. The company, tools and people in the game are fictional; the match between degrees and jobs follows public, general sources, and every company divides the work and sets its requirements differently.