Both in the U.S. and overseas, semiconductor manufacturers are ramping up the production of devices that integrate photonics technologies. Workforce development and training initiatives aim to ensure that these device manufacturers have a sizeable pool of talent from which to identify the most qualified workers. But the technology is advancing faster than the current talent pipeline can supply workers with the requisite skill sets. Courtesy of AIM Photonics. This trend is familiar in the integrated photonics space. Still in the nascent days of these sophisticated technologies, workforce training programs are struggling to bridge the skills gap that exists between effective photonics design and manufacturing, and the competencies that workers obtain from peripheral disciplines, such as electrical engineering. Recently though, spearheaded by tech giants, the semiconductor industry has reached a new inflection point. NVIDIA’s unveiling of its co-packaged optics networking switches this spring was a pivotal moment in the semiconductor industry’s shift from optical-to-electronic transceivers to silicon photonics. For a company of NVIDIA’s reach and market share to categorically embrace silicon photonics technology to this extent signaled that the industry’s appetite for photonic devices had become a catalyst for unprecedented challenges to the design houses and companies tasked with manufacturing them. When NVIDIA subsequently announced that it would produce its AI supercomputers entirely in the U.S., this shift had also become a turning point for the industry’s integrated photonics workforce. And NVIDIA is just one example of photonics coming into favor with chipmakers. Tower Semiconductor has begun the heterogeneous integration of quantum dot lasers on a silicon photonics platform at its foundry in Newport Beach, Calif. GlobalFoundries, meanwhile, plans to build a first-of-its-kind advanced packaging and photonics center in upstate New York. The facility would support the company’s differentiated silicon photonics platform. Quantum photonic computing company Xanadu expects its integrated photonics prospective worker talent pool to grow by up to 50% during the next few years. Courtesy of Xanadu. According to Elizabeth Moore, a postdoctoral associate at MIT’s Materials Systems Laboratory, developments such as these are an appropriate measure of the acceleration in photonic integrated circuit (PIC) production in the U.S. This surge in production, Moore said, exacerbates a challenge that is ongoing. “With workforce shortages already present, particularly at the middle-skilled worker (technician) level, the existing photonics workforce is unlikely to scale quickly enough to meet the industry’s demand at the scale needed,” Moore said. These developments also represent the tip of the iceberg. In a 2023 Applied Optics paper, Moore and her co-authors estimated that by 2030, the U.S. photonics industry will need 42,000 new middle-skilled technician workers to meet manufacturing demand1. Moore was also among several MIT researchers who, along with consulting firm Conducere, published a photonic integrated devices manufacturing workforce preparation assessment report on middle-skilled technicians. The MIT-Conducere team published its report this year, and identified two manufacturing technician roles that will be critical amid the ramp-up of integrated photonics production: PIC technician and functionalization technician. “There is generally a robust demand for professionals trained in integrated photonics, advanced packaging, and high speed,” said Radha Nagarajan, senior vice president and CTO for optical engineering at semiconductor firm Marvell Technology. “Integrated photonics is being actively integrated into multiple scale-up and scale-out applications, across multiple business units,” he said. Employer-specific training Earlier this year, Toronto-based quantum computing company Xanadu debuted its universal photonic quantum computer. The machine, called Aurora, operates at room temperature and consists of 35 photonics chips, 12 qubits, and 13 km of fiber optics. Since debuting the solution, Xanadu has announced agreements with Corning, for advanced fiber interconnects; Applied Materials, for superconducting transition-edge sensors; and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, for the accelerated development of silicon integrated photonics for quantum computing applications. Xanadu’s 200-plus-member workforce includes roughly 50 engineers and technicians with backgrounds in integrated photonics technology. According to company founder and CEO Christian Weedbrook, Xanadu expects its integrated photonics engineering talent pool to grow by 30% to 50% during the next few years. Positions on Xanadu’s engineering team often require specialized skill sets and a distinct combination of capabilities, making talent sourcing a challenging undertaking. “There are certain positions that are incredibly specialized, so finding candidates that have been focusing in those areas can be difficult at times,” Weedbrook said. To help recruit talent and meet its hiring goals, Xanadu has forged partnerships with academic institutions such as the National Quantum Laboratory at the University of Maryland. While the company does not currently have a formal, structured training program, it pairs new hires with senior and lead engineers. It also sponsors team members’ attendance at skill-building industry events. These events can be critically important for introducing and developing many of the industry-specific skills that engineers must master to succeed in photonics design and manufacturing roles. Though they qualify as “industry” events, the nature of these meetings, sessions, and trainings can be hard to characterize using a broad-based definition. In many cases, the knowledge necessary to learn these skills overlaps between electronics and photonics. While an electrical engineering degree has traditionally served as a ticket to careers in the semiconductor industry, this is not necessarily the case in integrated photonics. In 2024, PhotonDelta launched a “MasterPlus” optics and photonics program at three Dutch technical universities. Courtesy of PhotonDelta. AIM Photonics has introduced the Hands-On Photonics Education Kit, or HOPE Kit. Each kit contains six integrated photonic chips, which recipients can explore individually or as a system. Courtesy of AIM Photonics. Approximately 65% of SMART Photonics’ 200-plus-member workforce has some background experience in photonics engineering. The Dutch photonic integrated circuit (PIC) foundry offers generic photonic integration as well as multiproject wafer services. Courtesy of SMART Photonics. “Not all electrical and electronic engineering programs offer extensive courses, or maybe they don’t offer [any] courses in photonics, optical waveguides, photonics circuits engineering, light-matter interaction, or optical fibers,” Weedbrook said. “And most importantly, there is a vast lack of [practical experience in] building optical setups, using photonics-grade lasers and equipment, handling optical components, and manipulating and managing optical fiber, for example.” At the same time, photonics and electronics disciplines do share many similarities. In Marvell’s case, according to Nagarajan, the California-based company has benefited from this overlap — specifically between advanced packaging and integrated photonics — in addition to maintaining partnerships with universities nationwide. This has created an internal pool of skilled engineers, he said. Since its first cohort in 2021, the photonics and optical engineering certificate program at Massachusetts-based Stonehill College has enrolled about 60 students. Courtesy of Stonehill College. According to the findings of the MIT-Conducere study, some employers placed greater emphasis on on-the-job training and viewed the completion of photonics courses more as an indicator of interest in the field than of competency in it. Juliet Aiken, a Conducere managing partner, said that each company interviewed for the study had a unique approach to developing photonic integrated devices, making employer-specific training — which supplements broader, more generalizable academic exposure — vital to each company’s workforce development efforts. “I think both approaches are needed, but employer-specific training models that incorporate apprenticeships and certificates are more likely to have immediate and scalable impact,” said MIT’s Moore. “These models offer more flexibility — which is needed in this fast-moving industry — and can allow workers to enter the workforce more quickly while building expertise over time.” Internal training Like Xanadu, the PIC foundry SMART Photonics, headquartered in Eindhoven, Netherlands, fosters strategic partnerships with academic institutions, particularly Eindhoven University of Technology. At SMART Photonics, senior employees also mentor junior colleagues. SMART Photonics’ internal training regimen also includes courses on aspects of photonic integration from the JePPIX technology center in Eindhoven, credential-bearing certifications in Design for Six Sigma (DFSS), project management training, and access to more than 250 online courses for continuous professional development. Nearly two-thirds of SMART Photonics’ 200-plus-member workforce has some background in photonics engineering. According to the company, growing appli- cations of PICs across various sectors — including AI, telecommunications and data communications, automotive lidar, and quantum — are driving the increased demand for its technology offerings. “This growing demand leads to a need for a larger skilled workforce to support this expansion,” said Ilse de Graaf, talent acquisition lead at the company. The photonic integration courses that SMART Photonics made available through JePPIX are similar to initiatives that AIM Photonics spearheads in the U.S. AIM Photonics’ education and workforce development program helps employees to build comprehensive skill sets, with courses covering topics such as PIC testing, PIC packaging, and more. Companies including GlobalFoundries, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, L3Harris, Tokyo Electron, NVIDIA, and Toshiba are among those that have subscribed to AIM Photonics’ education and workforce development courses and programs, said Robert Geer, director of education and workforce development at AIM Photonics. “Typically, companies do not share details of their internal training and apprenticeship programs. It is safe to say that if there are needs for PIC skills that are not met by educational institutions, then companies find ways to fill the gap,” Geer said. Intel, Infinera, and Analog Photonics are among the manufacturers that have demonstrated leadership in technician training by adopting structured, in-house development models aligned with production needs, according to Peter Rice, manager of quality at IQE, a manufacturer of advanced compound semiconductor wafers and material solutions. “This systematic investment in technician development is especially critical as the demand for PIC manufacturing talent grows and the field continues to evolve with AI, datacom, and quantum applications,” he said. HOPE in higher education One of the greatest challenges that colleges and universities face in preparing students for careers in integrated photonics is providing hands-on experiences in addition to structured trainings. Chip and PIC testing requires expensive, complex laboratory setups, which many schools lack. According to Rice, in addition to cleanrooms, essential equipment and resources that many colleges and universities are unable to provide for students include wafer-scale test and inspection equipment, packaging and fiber alignment stations, real-time process monitoring tools, and equipment for III-V materials processing. Rice also serves as interim director of an integrated photonics certificate program at Stonehill College in Easton, Mass. In response to this challenge, AIM Photonics has introduced the Hands-On Photonics Education Kit, or HOPE Kit. Developed in collaboration with MIT, Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), the University of Rochester, Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts, and Spark Photonics, each HOPE Kit features packaged PICs that can be tested and characterized without the need for expensive, specialized laboratory setups. AIM Photonics sent its first shipment of HOPE Kits last year to Western New England University in Massachusetts, MIT, and Bridgewater State University. According to Geer, the design and packaging of the six chips in each HOPE Kit enables recipients to explore them individually or as a system. “Students can dive into testing real, functioning devices and learn how to collect and interpret data, troubleshoot designs, and build a stronger understanding of how these components work,” he said. Another initiative that debuted last year is a joint MIT-Massachusetts Bay Community College-led “boot camp.” The hands-on program was part of a National Science Foundation Advanced Technical Education program called the Northeast Consortia for Advanced Integrated Silicon Technologies. Participating students received instruction on electronic-photonic packaging technologies and evanescent chip-to-chip passive assembly. They also received training at the MIT.nano laboratory facility. Certification programs In 2020, with the goal of providing intensive, hands-on experience, two Massachusetts colleges — Stonehill College and Bridgewater State University — launched certificate programs in photonics and optical engineering. The schools launched the certificate programs with grant funding from MIT’s Initiative for Knowledge and Innovation in Manufacturing in partnership with the U.S. Office of Naval Research. Since its first cohort in 2021, the Stonehill certificate program has received 100 inquiries and 74 applications, and nearly 60 enrolled students to date. Students learn and experience waveguide design, photonic device fabrication, optical materials science, optical circuit simulation, and techniques for systems packaging. The nine-month, or two-semester, program aims to extend education beyond standard electrical engineering courses, and includes a three-month paid internship. Industry partners include Thorlabs, IQE, VEIR, Insulet, WiseTech Global, SiPhox, 3DEO, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. “Meeting industry needs long-term will require a systematic shift toward tighter education-industry partnerships and faster credentialing,” said Cheryl Schnitzer, director of Stonehill’s photonics and optical engineering certificate programs. “To accommodate this, we have focused on tightening our academic model, ensuring specific competencies and techniques are mastered by students, and frequently infusing new industry feedback into our courses and program.” Post-graduate shift In the Netherlands, photonics consortium PhotonDelta has started ramping up its vocational college programs for technicians after initially placing greater emphasis on applied sciences program development, according to Evi Somers, PhotonDelta’s program director of human capital. For example, at certain regional training centers, programs are being developed for teaching cleanroom and cleantech skills to students at the associate’s (MBO) and bachelor’s (HBO) levels. Additionally, LiS (Leidse Instrumentmakers School) is developing an extended program on optical engineering, through which MBO students will learn about laser and optical fiber technology. While growing its technician training regimens, the Netherlands is continuing to expand its higher professional education programming. Last September, PhotonDelta and Optics Netherlands launched a “MasterPlus” optics and photonics program at three Dutch technical universities: Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology, and University of Twente. With a first cohort of 35 students, the program focuses on optics and photonics courses and features challenge-based projects. For many students, it also culminates in an internship with a major company in the integrated photonics realm, such as ASML, Signify, SMART Photonics, and LioniX International. This September, the Netherlands will see the launch of a new master’s program in applied quantum technology at universities of applied sciences in Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Delft, and Enschede, with Fontys and Saxion focusing on quantum light in PICs and quantum processors. “In the Netherlands, we focus our efforts on both skilling up the existing workforce and educating [new] talent in master programs,” Somers said. “Within the PIC industry, a lot of different topics are needed.” Reference 1. E. Moore at al. (2023). Adaptable middle-skilled labor: a neglected roadblock to photonics industry growth. Appl Opt, Vol. 62, No. 31, pp. H9-H16.