3D InCites Podcast
3D InCites Podcast
A Conversation about Global Fab Expansion and Its Impact on Equipment Suppliers and the Workforce
The chip shortage in the wake of COVID 19 is such a big story that it’s attracting mainstream media attention, and it feels like the general public now knows what semiconductors are. The upshot is that the shortage combined with the demand for chips is putting a strain on the entire semiconductor supply chain. With an expected 38 new fabs coming online between 2020 and 2024, demand is high for 300mm and 200mm tools, as well as the workforce to make them run. Not only that, but lead times to get those fabs operating will not solve the current situation. Emerald Grieg of Surplus Global; Dave Kirsch, EV Group, and Darrell McDaniel, of NSTAR Global Services, join me in a conversation to provide perspective and insight.
Contact Today's Speakers
Emerald Grieg, SurplusGlobal, Email: Emerald@Surplusglobal.com
Darrell McDaniel, NSTAR Global Services, Email: DMcDaniel@NSTARglobalservices.com
Dave Kirsch, EV Group, Email: D.Kirsch@EVGroup.com
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Hi there, I'm Francoise von Trapp, And this is the 3D InCites podcast. Today, we're talking about how the rapid global fab expansion caused in part by the chip shortage is impacting equipment suppliers and the workforce. To have this conversation, I invited Dave Kirsch from EV Group. Emerald Grieg from SurplusGlobal and Darrell McDaniel from NSTAR Global Services. They all work in this area of equipment suppliers and workforce. I'm going to ask them to each introduce themselves and we're going to just have a conversation about it. So Dave, why don't you go ahead. What is your role at EVG?
Dave:Good afternoon, Francoise. And thank you very much for having me. I really look forward to the conversation. My name is Steve Kirsch, as you had mentioned, I am vice president and general manager of EV Group with responsibilities for North America. So I basically am responsible for the operations within North America, our onsite lab, our sales and support team as well.
Emerald Grieg:Yes. Thanks Francoise for inviting me for this podcast. I am(Emerald Grieg) the executive vice president here in the U.S. I manage the business. Our headquarters are in Korea and we buy and sell secondary equipment.
Darrell McDaniel:Hello everyone. My name's Darrell McDaniel, president and CEO NSTAR Global Services. We're proud to say we're celebrating our 20th anniversary of supplying technical service solutions, specializing in asset relocation, facility and equipment services.
Françoise:So on the asset relocation, you're talking about moving equipment, uninstalling, reinstalling equipment, and also providing the workforce to support that.
Darrell McDaniel:Correct.
Françoise:Okay. And Dave, you guys are original equipment manufacturers, right? EV group you are selling your tools around the world. They're all manufactured in Austria, correct?
Dave:Correct. We manufacture tools for, as you had said, installations on a worldwide basis, we also supply, process controls and advancements along those lines to help the customer be able to use the equipment for some very novel practices.
Françoise:Okay. And, Emerald Surplus Global is in the secondary equipment market.
Emerald Grieg:Yes. So we work with customers that are maybe upgrading, let's say from 200 millimeter to 300 millimeter, or they're going to advance technology nodes. They might have excess equipment, so we could purchase that or offer them other equipment that hey might need, We move all of our stuff to Korea because you know, that the Asia markets are really hot for equipment, but I'm hoping that changes soon with all the funding that everybody's looking for. Right, so I'm hoping that kind of switch back here.
Françoise:Right now, we're in the midst of a chip shortage and we also have a demand for chips, and this is putting a strain on the entire semiconductor supply chain. So we've got 38 new fabs coming online in the next three years now, three and a half years, and there's going to be a lot of demand for both 300 millimeter and 200 millimeter tools. So what do you think what's the impact on your companies as suppliers?
Dave:I think basically we've encountered a perfect storm, if you will. Cause we actually, as we started going into this and the 2019 timeframe, we started to actually pick up from a technological perspective quite a bit. There was a tremendous amount of innovation going on and I can speak also from a North American perspective. And, really, we were driving quite a bit of that at the same time. There were very nationalistic viewpoints that were looking to, w here countries were looking to develop their own infrastructure. And this is really what I think we've all learned is that the semiconductor industry is such a big part of the infrastructure, on a global scale. And we are witnessing it in spades right now, but I think that as the pandemic hit, you know, a nd you had, y ou'd kind of touched on it as well. We, you know, a lot of our industries really suffered automotive industry, things like that, i ndustries that w e're actually looking to, to pick up quite a bit, with that, our supply chains started to shift a nd, and then of course, with a huge, huge demand for consumer electronics, home office electronics and things like that. So, you know, we had a number of things come together all at once, which really emphasized a strain on the supply.
Emerald Grieg:I kind of agree with Dave, it was a perfect storm. I call it like, or even a car wreck. I mean, everything hit at once. You had the pandemic, I mean, you had Snowmageddon lash, I mean, during the holidays, right? You had all this transportation issues. The working from home, technology that was ramping moving forward by G installations and everything went crazy for a while. And I think that's what happened with this chip shortage. A lot of the automotive companies canceled their orders, or I don't know if it's canceled, but downgraded their orders right. So they didn't load their fabs. So companies and IDMs had to go load their fabs, right. They loaded it with whatever they can because if you're not running wafers, you're losing money.
Françoise:So I was under the impression and correct me if I'm wrong, that the technology shift was also a matter of shifting over the lines because you're not using the same chips necessarily in automotive applications, as you are using for some of the more advanced node, advanced technology, like artificial intelligence, 5g, all of that. Did that have any bearing there or, um, was there actual, you know, where they actually shifting orders to existing capacity?
Emerald Grieg:So my understanding is that one, you have foundries, right? So they're making some automotive, but they're also making communications chips, chips that are going to working from home products. But you also have IDMs, right? Like, folks that are making chips like a non semi NXP, those kinds of folks, and they have their lines loaded, but when people stopped, they started loading with other products and yes, they're not all seven nanometer, 10 nanometer, 14 nanometer. I mean, look at GlobalFoundries. They're like killing it right now. Right. they're fully loaded at 14 day innovator. Everybody, every different type of technology uses these nodes. And it's, it's really interesting because until the pandemic happened, I don't think half the population understood what a semiconductor was or that their iPads and their cell phones and their TVs all needed, or their cameras needed semiconductors. And they thought they started looking into it because they couldn't get it, immediately.
Darrell McDaniel:Well, and it goes beyond that, your washing machine and your refrigerators and everything. I think that's been the biggest shocker to a lot of people, you know, cause everybody wanted to go do their kitchen renovations. And all of a sudden they showed up at the Home Depot stores and there's a six month wait, you know, for a washing machine. It's crazy, you know.
Emerald Grieg:Right. So Darryl, I agree with you, the six months of getting electronics, smart appliances, as you would call it. Right. But the other issue was having people physically at the plant working. There's a lot of fabs that had to move people to different shifts. They cut their shifts in half. So half the people would be integrating with the other half to minimize contact. That was very difficult. You know, there was it was kind of essential workers that had to be on site. So your production, I mean, you can say, yes, I'm running full, but it's going to slow down. It has to slow down.
Dave:Are there's there's no, there's no doubt that the pandemic absolutely felt into supply chain management across the board. Chips are something that I believe may have come as a surprise to maybe many people outside of our industry. I'm sure we all realize how important they are. But, like you said, to a large degree, Emerald there, you know, kind of an unsung hero that it's obvious that the need and the dependency on such an industry is really been magnified over the course of the past 18 months.
Françoise:You know, that's one of the things that really has struck me is that mainstream media is now running clips. But I think also with the shutdown, that impacted things, but now, okay, so now we've got, this huge surge we were before the pandemic, we were looking towards an increase right. We had been kind of a downturn in 2019, the memory market was flat and then it was expected to come back and then we were all on tenterhooks waiting to see what happened with the pandemic. So now here we are a year later and we've got, you know, all these new fabs going in. And how is that impacting your business, your orders?
Emerald Grieg:Well, I'll speak for Surplus Global, 2020 right, was not a bad year, especially the second half of 2021 should be phenomenal. We should break all of our past records in 2021. And that is due to the fact that China's looking for equipment, even Korea and in the U.S. But also Singapore and Japan. We have offices in all those locations. So, we will see growth, but all the equipment manufacturers, all the OEMs, they're having double digit growth this year, their lead times are out. I mean, Dave, you can speak to that lead times o r h ow, you know, up to 12 months in some cases, right?
Dave:Yeah. I mean, we have actually been able to hold pretty well. And it's kind of interesting, right? Because we've been able to reallocate our labor force without a lot of people traveling. We've had a lot of expertise be able to stay in house and help out with our with our manufacturing abilities. So we've really concentrated quite a bit on being able to work with a local, supply chain, as well as, use the in-house talent that we, that we presently have from manufacturing and engineering, the equipment. And so our lead times really haven't been affected too much. I can guarantee you that our customers were always like our equipment to be available much sooner than it is, but, we've been pretty fortunate as far as being able to you know, schedule ourselves appropriately. So we really didn't lose too much at all from a perspective of being able to supply. One of the things that we did run into was, you know, the inability to, maneuver, from a central position, right? So this is where having, local offices and, and trained people, in located strategically throughout the world was really built to benefit us as far as, you know, getting service to people on time, having installations go down and, and continue on in a timely basis. We were really fortunate as far as that goes fortunate. There was quite a bit of planning that, that we actually looked to to try to do with that, try to try to keep that moving in a very smooth manner. But, those probably were where the, most of the challenges faced us is that, you know, especially last January, we were actually having to pull people offsite, foreign nationals and things like that. Not to sound too political, but I mean, it, because of the science behind the pandemic, all the countries started pulling all their nationals back in. And, you know, we had installations that were in the middle of going on. These people had to be pulled back immediately and it made it very difficult, but we were able to overcome. And I think the local offices on a worldwide basis performed very well,
Françoise:Yeah, Derek how did that impact NSTAR. I mean, I know you guys have offices and service and people all over the world supporting your customers,
Darrell McDaniel:You know, I have to agree with Dave, like last year during the whole COVID we had massive installations of people a lot of the large fabs, and that's really what kept us alive. They locked them down. They didn't want anybody coming in. They didn't want anybody leaving, but, you know, that's kinda what kept the lights on if you want to put it that way. And then now we're seeing this total opposite. All the OEMs, all the IDMs are trying to gobble up any talent that happens to be out there. And the problem is that pool is getting smaller. You know, so when I hear of TSMC and a giga fab or Intel, you know, wanting to double down, let's put 20 billion down, you know, that's a lot of resources that I just, you know, we're, we've been going to tech schools, we've been going to the military camps that are, you know, the guy, the veterans coming out and really trying to work with semi.org of how do we get these guys kind of, fast-tracked into some kind of you know, certification plan that we can infuse people into that pool, because I'm afraid there's going to be a huge push really soon. You know, we're seeing it now. I think last I checked, we had 65 openings and that's just never been, we usually run around 20, you know? And so, and these are all the big ones and the small ones.
Françoise:What level of education does somebody have to have? at just entry level?
Darrell McDaniel:Well, you know, I have disputes about that with a lot of my peers. You know, I've been doing this for about 30 years and we used to always say everybody needed a two year, a four year degree to work on this equipment. Well, if you go get a, let's say an ASC grad with a four year degree in chemical engineering, he is not going to work on that equipment. He wants to go build that equipment, design that equipment. So to me, it's the two year degree, it's the technical schools, which there's far and few between of those now, you know, it used to be a lot of them that put out electronic degree people is what they call them, you know, and I remember my first job was TI and they hired a bunch of us, you know, then you, you know, on your bids just degree later, but, you know, and then a lot of the military guys, the aircraft techs, the Navy techs that are coming out, they're perfectly, you know, suited for this type of work. Number one, they're flexible. They like to travel. You know, and that's the whole thing with this industry is we've kind, kinda lost our mobility..
Françoise:Yeah. Do you think, so one of the conversations I was having with someone is, is this an inflated, is this super cycle really happening, or are we going to, with all of these new facts coming on? Are we going to have overcapacity at some point?
Darrell McDaniel:Well, you know, I'm sure Dave and Emerald can agree. Any of us that have been here for a long time in the eighties and the nineties, it was always a boom or a bust, and that's kind of how you wrote it. And then all of a sudden in the, we get up in the 2000's and it's just been kind of this steady, there is no bust, it was just kind of a steady increase in, maybe it would level out for a little bit and it wouldn't increase some more.
Emerald Grieg:That's absolutely correct. It used to be very cyclic, right?
Darrell McDaniel:Yeah. And now the sudden it's just this increase. So over capacity, I think we're all smart enough and these companies are smart enough, but the demand is just so high across the board, whether it's AI, whether it's, you know, consumer electronics, computers, cars, everything else. I mean, the switches that go into these, you know, battery operated cars and the autonomous cars, I was looking the other day and reading about it, it's amazing. You know, there's just the consumption of chips.
Emerald Grieg:Right. And sensors. Yeah. So when you ask about the different types of chips, Francoise, everything is turning what they call smart, right? So you have sensors everywhere, not even just for automotive vehicles, but for your jobs. And you talk about the workers, right? What do you need? A lot of these fabs are very highly automated, right? So you have to at least be, you know, knowledgeable on how to look at data, how to run recipes, all of that,
Françoise:How much of this is, you know, there's a lot of talk about industry 4.0 and automating as much as possible. Do you think this is going to push? I mean, would that help reduce the need for human workforce? Are we not even there yet? I
Darrell McDaniel:Personally have been here in the black fab, you know, concept for a long time. And I, I don't, I, I can see us getting more and more automated. I mean, the tools now pretty much tell us what to do. We don't have to go in there and break out the schematics and find the chip or the, or the resistor that's burned out. You run a diagnostic tool, kind of tells you, Hey, you know, my arm's broken over here, or I got a leak over here. I mean, the OEMs have done a fantastic job putting automation into this equipment.
Dave:Yeah. Kind of like the perfect storm that we, we spoke to earlier, Francoise, I mean, but maybe just the opposite. Right? There's a lot of things that are coming together that are going to allow us to move forward. Just like Darrell had mentioned. There's, you know, you take a look at, you take a look at not only the need, that, that you had mentioned has presented itself over the course of the past 18 months, but also you take a look at the technology where we are the sensors that Emerald had mentioned as well. You know, all of this, all of this is going to help drive that black factor that Darrell had mentioned, a little bit faster than it did. And I think, I think to a degree, we would be remiss if we didn't think that, yes, there is, there is now maybe a little more of a push more than ever. I've heard it from myself, as an OEM that, you know, there's people very interested in, in anticipating where their equipment is going to be three, six, 12 months down the line, from a maintenance perspective, it's conversation that's, that permeates itself throughout the entire, all the discussion points we cover, you know, conferences, virtual or otherwise, conferences and just gatherings, I think it's very prominent.
Françoise:Is it possible to manufacture enough tools to outfit or repurpose? I mean, how much of it is repurposing legacy tools for different, you know, different nodes that are being used for internet and things or automotive? I mean, there must be a great market right now for, for all of the tools, but is it enough? Are there, are, is there going to be a torch, a shortage in tools, as opposed to just a shortage in chips.
Emerald Grieg:There already is a shortage of tools.
Darrell McDaniel:I was gonna, I was going to let the equipment guys go. I was waiting for you to say that.
Emerald Grieg:Yeah, some of those fabs we'll be looking for secondary equipment. So, um, I wanted to touch back on this last year, 2020. So one of the things that we tried to do to help people continue business was, you know, our CEO loves technology. He, he does. He just loves it. I can't describe it any other way. So he goes, we're bending a hollow lens now. I mean, so we basically purchased the hollow lens so that customers can look at tools and inspect them without leaving their office. Right. So that helped a lot of customers, if they were uncertain, we could demo those tools. Right. But, the equipment for these fabs, they're probably already putting orders in, right. They may have an LOI or something like that, but it'll take some time to build, right. So Darrell, you know, probably that better than us, how long it'll take to build that facility and to outfit it, you know, just installation takes how long to a whole fab.
Darrell McDaniel:Well, that's why we were, we were cracking up because now the OEMs are saying, well, TSMC says, we need to have tools ready to go by December. I haven't even broke ground. I mean, this is amazing. They needed tools by December, this United States, we have inspections and everything else, you know? So there, I mean, it's, it's crazy. And we all smile about it and laugh about it. And they still say, but I need 40 people because we have to get ready. And I'm like, okay, sure.
Emerald Grieg:That's right. So folks, Francoise folks that have been in this business for a very long time, understand that there is a flow. I mean, you've got to get your fab built, checked out, audit it, and then you start, I mean, designing then during that period of time, you're designing location of tools, all the craftsmen that need to do plumbing, high vac, gases, all of that. I mean, that takes a long time. So, they are putting in orders, but you're not, I don't think you're going to see wafers out for at least two to three years. You can correct me if I'm wrong
Darrell McDaniel:Well, but, but that's just, it, there is no, there is no light switch to the, you know, the supply and demand. I mean, I think the geopolitical is probably the, the quickest answer to helping us get more chips is working through that. Cause I think we all forgot just how intertwined we are with one of our Asian countries and everything else. I mean, we're seeing Europe kicked back in now cause everybody's trying to see what they can do, but, but it's going to take that. It's it's for us to just say, we're going to do it all in the United States. No, it's not going to be a light switch at all this.
Françoise:Is a global industry and, and I don't think the government really understands that fully, because they're not the people running the government aren't semiconductor manufacturers.
Emerald Grieg:Well, they should, I think that what people should look at is the whole process flow of making a wafer and packaging it and then giving it to the end user. Right. I mean, there must be like, I don't know, like maybe 20 different, I'm not going to say 20 different, you know, airplane rides, but the material that comes over, the processing, the testing, the grinding, the packaging, the shipment, there, there's so many steps and they cross not just, you know, lines within the US but international lines and they go, whatever those chips, products go everywhere.
Darrell McDaniel:Frequent flyer miles for chips.
Emerald Grieg:That's right. Yeah. You know what, that's a great idea. We get frequent flyer miles.
Françoise:Yeah. And then there's also the sustainability aspect, which we can, that's like a whole other story, but that comes into play because of just the, all of the transportation issues that happen in the manufacturing of a chip from people traveling for sales purposes, or, you know, shipping wafers from one end of the world to the other, for their next step in their process. yeah. That's interesting. And, you know, I have a lot of questions that can't be answered because we don't know right now, you know, but I read stuff and I hear stuff and I think it doesn't really make sense that for instance, that the new fabs will solve this chip shortage. We have the chip shortage right now. We're either just going to have to stick it out and hold on to our phones and cars. I was thinking about the other day, I, my car runs great, but it's 2014. And I don't think I'm going to be buying a new car for quite some time because you know, the prices have gone up.
Emerald Grieg:oh yeah, you're paying over sticker.
Françoise:Now I heard that one of the reasons rental cars are so expensive is that the, to get through the year, the COVID when all, when, when people werent traveling for awhile, um, the fleet, they sold their fleets, the rental car place that sold their fleet. And they can't buy new cars because there aren't any new cars. So they're actually buying used cars.
Emerald Grieg:Yeah. And you know, the other thing that we haven't touched on is the Suez canal and the stoppage over there. That was, what a week was it? A week long? Things have been affected by that. And it's not even going to clear out for another month or two, right. They've diverted shipments. There's a shortage of containers. I mean, even if you order, let's say a piece of equipment a new one from Dave, it may take just two extra weeks to even get it because you've got to go find another way to get here.
Darrell McDaniel:Well I mean we're watching a lot of older fabs consolidate they're maximizing, you know, what tools they do have tools they have in, in storage, you know, like we're taking maybe three tools and making one good tool out of it. You know, we're seeing a lot of that creativity going on, and just, you know, fabs that we kinda thought I was slowly dying off the vine now have new life, you know? And so it's, let's move this six over here and we're going to take two from this one. And so they're trying to maximize, and I, and I like that, you know, cause that's, that just breeds new activity and that's all that switching, you know, node stuff. It's, you know, it's not the big guys, it's the small ones, you know, the NXPs the analogs all those guys. and you know, and you're hearing the word onshoring, which we haven't heard in a long time, you know? I don't, I don't think this chip funding, I don't know what that's going to do, but I'll let the equipment guys answer that, you know, but, but we love it. Anytime you have to throw money in it, somebody's going to grab it and hopefully we're going to grab some of it, you know? So, you know, like I said, I think there's a lot of positive things out there and just see, you know, anytime I hear two or three fabs, nonetheless, you know, more than that, starting up, it's a workforce. We had a workforce aging issue to start with. And so that's going to be a huge problem going forward.
Emerald Grieg:Darrell, what do you think the average age in this industry is for?
Darrell McDaniel:We actually, in my, let's say out of my 220 people, 60% were above the age of 50.
Emerald Grieg:Is that crazy? That's crazy.
Darrell McDaniel:That's crazy. And that's why we started, we're trying to make it the industry sexy again, we're going to, you know, tech schools and community colleges, trying to get them excited about it, you know, showing them these chips, you know, we all have wafers sitting in our office, just doing anything we can to see if there's any kind of you know, avenue that we can start infusing
Emerald Grieg:You factoring in the past was not sexy. As you said, right. You get to wear a bunny suit. You get to go into work at 7:00 AM and 6:00 PM.
Darrell McDaniel:But you know, I look at it different. We heard about the, you know, gender differentiation in salaries and stuff. Well guess what, in a fab, it's not like that a smock is a smock is a smock. If you can work on a tool you would make just as much, you know, so that's kind of what we're really pushing, you know, and you don't have to have a four year degree. You don't have to go getting huge debt to step into this industry, you know, some kind of technical aptitude, will get you in there. You know, like we said, in the beginning with all the automation that Dave and those guys are building into these equipment, now we don't necessarily need a group of four year degree engineers. I need maybe one engineer watching over a lot of techs, you know, and kind of making sure they're, they're not tearing up the system, but to do PMs and proactive maintenance and stuff, it's just, you know, that's what we're trying to make. And, like I said, SEMI jumped on it. There was a group called semi. org that's trying to build a curriculum around this whole thing and helping these these small community colleges funded.
Emerald Grieg:So yeah, I've, uh, I've actually been working with Sherri Liss at Semi foundation and they are going to be piloting their new website, which is matching up stem students with corporations or companies and helping them figure out their track and working with, not just community college trade schools, but universities as well. Yeah. So they've actually, they've seen this problem approaching for a while.
Darrell McDaniel:Well, they scared me the last time you and I were at the, I think it was ISS at half moon bay. All they kept talking about is we need to make more PhDs and I'm like squirming in my seat, I don't want any PhDs, ha, Dave does. I don't.
Emerald Grieg:Yeah Dave needs PhDs. But the important thing is there's a home for everybody.
Darrell McDaniel:There definitely is. There is no shortage,
Françoise:So it's scary. What's the, what are the short term solutions? What can we do? What's the positive? What are the short-term solutions to get through this? Yeah,
Dave:I think you're right. Francoise and I think you've all touched on it, but, you know, this is, you know, you, you speak to the, you know, the short-term correction of this, a lot of this is an ingenuity of other sorts, right? So it is, it is the ability to, it i s ability to manage the e quipment s ets that you have, whether they have been, whether they're presently on the floor o r whether they've been in t he closet and you need to remove them and bring them back up to speed in order to make them, functional. it's also, it's also the ability to, you know, understand, you know, what you're going to do with the materials that you have coming in. Right? So, supply chain management on our s ide as well, is probably, y ou k now, more important now than it, than it has ever been, so that we can, you know, so that we can replenish these coffers, if you will, with the, y ou k now, with the chips that are, that are coming about, as you had mentioned, F rancoise, you know, t he, the fabs that are going up today are going to be addressing the the 5g, the autonomous driving and things like that, that are coming down the pipe, right. I think, you know, a couple of people, Jeep Manocha, and those types of people have said, you know, if they've set the sights on 2030 as being the next big milestone, but we have to target everything within as is what we have to target as far as, um, you know, being able to grow our industry. But, um, in order to grow that industry, you know, bingo, as far as, you know, it's, this is a situation that we have been handed, and we have to make the most out of the opportunity that it is supplied us. Right. So, yes, never before has our industry been in the limelight, like it is right now, and being able to market ourselves from an engineering perspective, from an interest perspective, from a stem perspective, being able to bring these people in, you know, the younger people, and, letting them know what a part of what a part of society the industry is. And if we can, if we can contribute from that standpoint, you know, that's really where it's going to help us out and in the long run, but for right now, I think it is a lot of ingenuity and it's going to be a lot of understanding the best way to, to make what we have work in the best way possible for us.
Françoise:Maybe with things coming to the forefront of mainstream media, people now, people know the general public now know what a semiconductor is they know what a computer chip is. They know that it's a growing business. They know that there's opportunity. And I think that's, that's a wave we should be trying to ride.
Emerald Grieg:60 Minutes was just on with Leslie Stall. I thought that was actually a good segment about semiconductors. Pat Gelsinger was on there, but it gave you a little bit of insight into chip making. I mean, she actually said semiconductor correctly. She did a great job in explaining semiconductors, how they're used, why they're used, where they're needed and the complexity of it and the supply chain and what they're trying to do to bring back manufacturing. But, you know, back on the topic of that, it's not a sexy type of job. It comes down to, and this is my opinion. You have the Googles and the Amazons and the Facebooks and these guys, they are wining and dining fresh out of college students, right? The salaries are very high. The perks are awesome, and they're treated very differently than if you come out looking for an engineering job in manufacturing. That's just a fact, and maybe that needs to be changed a little bit, you know? But back when I was working in the fab, right, you went in, in the morning, you came out at night, you had a pager, you didn't talk basically, you couldn't do anything external to your job that is not going to happen these days. Right. So the industry has to maybe think about that a little bit, you know, to attract workers, Darrell you can talk to that a little bit. Well, I'm interested to hear what you say, because you see the gamut of people.
Darrell McDaniel:You know what I've seen a lot of these facilities, they've really tried to cater to people. They have onsite recreational facilities. They have, you know, there's a lot of stuff they put in, they have stores that they can buy, you know, various things. When I, even, when I was at TI a long time ago, you know, they, they had built this nice recreational facility, so they really try to make it. So you'd never want to leave that campus, you know, you can do it at lunch. And so I think they're going to have to do more of that. Like apple, you know, they say that cafeteria in California is better than any five star restaurant. Well, you know, I think we're going to have to do stuff like that, you know, make it, you know, cause it's a work-life balance within millennials and we're just going to have to adapt to it.
Emerald Grieg:I don't even know how to explain it to people. Darrell, this is the best industry I've ever could have imagined to be working in. Not just the travel meeting, people globally, like all over the world. Okay. Smart, intelligent people. Technology that'll blow you away. I mean, you know, when I, when I was telling my kids and they were five and six, I said, IOT, here it comes. And they go, mom. And nowadays I go, yes, mother. And you used to tell that at the dinner table, you were right at the dinner table every night. And I said, I just went to this conference and this was amazing. And you just can't even describe to a lot of people, what it, what it's like. I mean, it, I look at the healthcare industry, right. We were, I personally believe we were way ahead of them just in automation, the data analysis and in the hospital. And, it's, it's just very difficult to put into words right.
Dave:Now you realize how much the healthcare industry relies on the semiconductor industry.
Emerald Grieg:That's right. Right.
Darrell McDaniel:I gave everybody the country boys speech, you know, who, I'm a Little Rock Arkansas guy and I've been all over the world. So short of going in the military were, can you do that? You know, it's this industry. Yeah.
Emerald Grieg:Meeting and meeting really nice people all over the world. Right.
Darrell McDaniel:Absolutely. Everywhere. You know?
Françoise:Well, one thing we can be sure of is job security though. Right. Okay. Well, on that note, I think we've covered a lot of ground. It was a great conversation and I would like, how can people get in touch with you the best way, if they want to learn more about your companies. Darrell?
Darrell McDaniel:Look at our website, it's got the jobs that are out there. It really explains what we do on a day-to-day basis. And so, you know, if anybody's interested, please reach out
Françoise:And can they email you?
Darrell McDaniel:It's DMcDaniel@nstargs.com. Make it short.
Emerald Grieg:Okay. And Emerald, you can reach me at emerald@ surplusglobal.com. But my website is www.surplusglobal..com. Very easy.
Dave:And you can reach me at D.Kirsch@Evgroup.com or through our website as well at Evgroup.com.
Françoise:And you're all on LinkedIn. And so thank you so much for your time today. This was a really fun conversation. I hope other people enjoy it as much as I did. And, I'll put your contact information in the show notes. So thank you everybody.
Darrell McDaniel:Thank you. Bye bye.
Emerald Grieg:Thank you, Francoise.
Dave:Thanks Francoise.
francoise:Bye-bye. If you've got a topic you'd like to see discussed, or would like to sponsor an upcoming podcast, drop us a line. There's lots more to come. So tune in next time on the Tridion sites podcast.