WYSO Public Radio: Intel sponsors summer camp at Wright State ahead of plans for massive Ohio hiring spree

Thirty college students and five high schoolers are at Wright State University learning about the semiconductor career field. They are part of the Intel-sponsored summer internship program.

The company is building two massive chip production plants east of Columbus. In the next two years, it plans to hire thousands of workers.

Wright State and Central State universities are collaborating to train the area workforce for careers at Intel and others in the semiconductor industry, providing hands-on experience in microelectronic design and security, cleanroom operations, printed circuit board design and fabrication, and electronics additive manufacturing.

Fathi Amsaad, an assistant professor at Wright State, said training Ohioans for this industry will benefit the country’s national security.

“When COVID happens, we had a shortage of chips and we relied on other manufacturers outside of the United States,” Amsaad said. “We want to bring manufacturers inside the United States for national security. We have to rely on our own industry so we need to make sure that we are self-sustained in terms of chips.”

At the same time, he said students will also learn how to ensure that chips from foreign countries are safe to use by U.S. companies and consumers.

“Students are trained in an assured and trusted microelectronics lab,” he said. “They learn how to make sure the hardware chips are protected from third-party attacks, are protected from modification attacks, are protected from insertion attacks or backdoors that can harm the availability or the reliability or security or trust of the microelectronics.”

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