Thread regarding Intel Corp. layoffs

@jf no, TSMC is way more efficient and profitable. Even Intel uses them instead of their own fabs. Time for some big changes.

@b3 Maybe we should strive to treat our employees better and not use the poor WLB of TSMC engineers as our benchmark.

Night shift cww engineering will still exist. And the cww going to s1 will elbe s1 in name only. A lot of them can/will continue their current schedule.

Our area CWW is leaving for day shift( 5and 7). Only NSE(4 and 6) will exist (and OCEs ob). The DSEs being asked if they want to move to S1 or nights.

@OP do you have any idea if it’s widespread? Can you share what module you’re in? -very concerned extremely extremely hardworking shift engineer here.

I've been here too long.
I read that as "Why eliminate sh-t engineers?" and didn't blink an eye.

@dy+1jy52ns3p Brutal is kicking our DEI and WLB culture, where is our Sohail like return to hold people accountable

@e8 says more about your engineering team than anything

@dr our S4 NSE is the best engineer in the area

@dk tsmc has different work reqs being in a different country. My understanding from green badge friends, it is very militaristic over there and conditions are brutal from a WLB perspective. Same with Samsung and their Samsung city.

Former engineer here. The process is so complex and taxing. When I was there it was like doing the jobs of 3-4 engineers on top of being on call. The shift engineers helped so much with WLB. This is going to burn more people out and cause an engineering shortage. Also most engineers didn’t get their PhDs to be on call for a job that under pays to the rest of the industry. It’s not like we were MDs or lawyers. It was just a job.

Putting an engineer on shift is a waste of an engineer.

Ireland is able to run their fabs without any on shift engineering, we should be able to do the same. We all know shift eng's are mix of people who either are new and are throw on shift to bulk up the numbers and work hard to get back on sh1, or are lazy eng's who have worked out its an easy job and can't hack it on sh1 so hide on nights

I don't believe OP is ready to be benchmarked to TSMC.

Miserable overworked engineers = successful company

S1 ENG were the worst to get a hold of even during S1 hours let alone them being on call.

A former ROC tech..

@b9 sure, just go out there and get one of these abundant high-quality jobs.

S1 engineers haven’t been pulling their weight for years. @bj nailed it. S1 engineers sit in countless meetings all day, but don’t actually do anything of real value

CCW is a redundancy. They just need one set of engineers who are on call. Anyone who survives the layoffs can expect to see their workload/hours approaching the 996 schedule worked by the competition. The free ride and party are over. Back to work!

pre covid shift 1 engineers did everything: process development, tool ownership, 24/7 pager coverage rotation. at least in lithography that was the setup. intel is just reverting back to that model. intel cannot afford the extra cww engineers anymore.

OP, I understand your frustration. Let me help you see it from a different perspective. The management knows the CWW engineers are pulling a lot of weight that actually sustains and supports day to day fab operations and the S1 engineers are not doing much and their huge salaries cannot be justified. The management knows that they are to blame for this because they kept the key decision making aspect of the job still with S1 engineers and execution worth CWW engineers. The CWW engineers by virtue of doing the same tasks over and over were able to master some very monotonous but important tasks but were never empowered to make decisions for broader technology development. I can see in my area that leadership has begun to ask CWW engineers to take up S1 engineering positions and ultimately you’ll see that there wouldn’t be any difference between them and S1 engineering. It’ll come down to cost of hiring and all the S1 engineers who cannot support plant operations will be forced to pack up their bags. The severance part is true for short term but cost of keeping unproductive S1 engineers who barely work 2h a day is more expensive long term. They will get rid of any difference between the different types of engineers. Everyone and anyone should be able to do whatever is asked of them.

My understanding is that we’re trying to modify the fab org structures to better align with the Foundry industry standard, which means we’re gonna copy TSMC’s slave-driver model. This should, in theory, make our cost structure be similar to TSMC.

@b3 interesting thesis. are you typically ignored in large groups by any chance?

@b3 Because those poor souls are basically slave labor stuck without hope of escape. Imagine having no social life and being deadbeat parents, true NPCs

@b3 High quality engineers will leave for high quality positions. Attrition will leave you with id--ts in S1, only bottom of the barrel engs who can't find a high quality of life position elsewhere. It's not like anyone on S1 is required to stay in semis. Have fun working with desperate losers

What a bunch of losers and whiners, TSMC have shift 1 engineers cover off hours and weekends, su-k it up or be laid off

@a8 I heard D1 DSEs were getting eliminated

In semiconductor manufacturing plants, most companies utilize a well trained process technician workforce to support 24 x7 manufacturing. In these companies the day shift engineering team trains the night shift technicians to perform a majority of the duties. Development is a different story. Some companies have a night shift engineer to perform more highly skilled duties to keep the lots running. Intel manufacturing cannot afford night shift engineers any more. Too much of a add to wafer cost.

What area cww are getting eliminated?

@OP I was a shift 4 process engineer for years before we all got moved to shift 1. We still had to call shift 1 for issues so might as well just write better RFCs and have the modules just follow them and utilize on call.

Right!! They're doing the same on our team. Like didn't they create the CWW role in the first place to ease high turnover for SH1? Because some really stupid sh-t gets escalated to the CWW. So great Intel doesn't learn from the past

I used to be in the fab. Came in at grade 7. We were expected to cover night and werkend shifts. Depended on your area if you were always on or if someone took all the pagers for the group for the weekend. This is not that difficult of an ask.