Scientists at forefront of future semiconductors

Scientists to address global shortages of electronic designers - The future of semiconductors - which are used to power billions of electrical items worldwide - will be driven by the University of Southampton after it allied with big tech businesses to develop a new generation of skilled workers. Experts from the university have joined the launch of the new Semiconductor Education Alliance which intends to address global shortages of electronic device designers and upskill the existing workforce. Semiconductors have become vital to world manufacturing businesses and are used in all mobiles and computers, alongside healthcare, transport and for clean energy technology. The new Alliance will see Southampton's School of Electronics and Computer Science partner with leading firms including Arm, Cadence, Synopsys, ST, Arduino, Taiwan's TSRI, the All India Council for Technical Education, alongside the universities of Cambridge and Cornell. Professor Geoff Merrett, from the University of Southampton, said: "We have collaborated with individual partners over many years, but uniting as a global Alliance gives a shared focus in addressing the design skill challenge. "Southampton will lead on developing two important global communities of practise among the academic community. The first to improve delivery of skills in electronic design and the second in using state-of-art design to improve academia's ability to improve research outcomes." The University of Southampton helped pioneer the creation of electronics more than 60 years ago - and was among the first developers of the semiconductor technology.