The development of semiconductor chips has always been one of the most fiercely competitive areas among countries, from the frenzy of patent applications to the restriction of equipment exports. However, it ultimately boils down to competition for talent. As a technology-driven industry, high-end technical talents represented by senior engineers are the cornerstone of the industry.

In recent years, the shortage of talents in China's semiconductor industry has been gradually expanding. In 2020, the number of people directly engaged in the integrated circuit industry in China was about 541,000, and it is estimated that the total industry talent demand will reach around 766,500 by 2023.

According to the talent shortage index analysis by Liepin (where a value greater than 1 indicates a shortage of talent and a value less than 1 indicates an oversupply), the talent gap in the semiconductor chip industry is very large, especially for chip design talents such as digital front-end engineers and analog chip design engineers, whose talent shortage index has exceeded 10.

Looking at the distribution of talents nationwide, design-related positions account for 45.48% of newly released positions, while the distribution of talents accounts for only 28.68%. However, the number of production-oriented technical engineers is much higher than that of newly released positions. Therefore, it can be seen that what China lacks in the semiconductor chip industry is design-related talents.

Interestingly, this phenomenon is becoming more pronounced in small-scale enterprises. According to public data from the China Semiconductor Industry Association (CSIA), among the 2,810 IC design companies in 2021, over 80% of them had fewer than 100 employees. However, their proportion of newly released positions is only 36.61%. This may be due to the size of the enterprises, but in these enterprises, the demand for design talents is significantly higher than that for production-oriented talents.

Furthermore, from a regional perspective, it is not surprising that Shanghai, as a national hub for the integrated circuit industry, ranks first in talent distribution.

In such a tight talent market, companies are offering high salaries to attract talents, with over 40% of newly released positions offering annual salaries of over 500,000 RMB.

With such market stimulation, it is inevitable to attract many participants. However, the semiconductor industry has high demands for talents, and the talent cultivation cycle is long. Unlike other engineering disciplines, the semiconductor industry requires high levels of engineering and precision, so fresh graduates often need one to two years of basic professional skills training before they can truly play a role.

Therefore, solving the problem of shortage of high-end talents will require a long process.