216 years of experience: New AT&S plant recruits first specialists

In its search for specialists for the newly created plant in Leoben, AT&S has had its first success: the first 30 specialists with a total of 216 years of professional experience in the relevant areas of semiconductors and IC substrates have already been hired.

In the next step, further engineers and technicians are to be recruited from Austrian universities and technical colleges as well as from industry. For the new research and production site in Leoben, AT&S will need around 700 new employees in the coming years. With the recruitment of 30 specialists, the high-tech group is now laying the foundation for the future workforce.

“Our new professionals will develop the processes for the new production facilities and work out the specifications for the new machines. With their many years of experience, they will also play an important role in training new employees for the site,” says Christopher Hermann, Director of Operations for IC substrates at AT&S.

Pioneers for Europe

The new specialists – 15 women and 15 men – come from Austria, the Philippines, and India and will accompany the construction of the new plant, which will be completed in March 2023, right from the start. “This is exciting because a new high-tech production facility is being created here, including an integrated research department, which can put Europe much more clearly on the map in the field of semiconductor production,” says Hermann. The new plant manufactures IC substrates, which serve as connections between the chips and the printed circuit boards with which modern systems for information processing are built.

These substrates are used, for example, in graphics cards, servers, and computers. They are the part of the microchip housing that makes integration into the finished systems possible. Substrates are therefore an important part of the powerful computers and servers that power applications such as video streaming, computer games, apps, or artificial intelligence. “The structures in the substrates are now so tiny that a lot of know-how and special processes are required to manufacture them. Today we need chemists, materials scientists, electrical engineers, and mechatronics engineers, among others, to be able to produce substrates,” says Hermann.

In the next recruitment step, these specialists are primarily sought at Austrian universities and technical colleges. “We still need 70 to 80 engineers and technicians for the new plant and believe that Austrian universities are training the right people,” says Rene Hörtner, HR Manager at AT&S Austria. In addition, around 100 employees with technical high school  degrees (HTL) or comparable training and 300 to 350 shift workers will have to be found for production. “The 30 specialists are a good start and an important basis for further recruitment. But we still have our hands full until the new location is completed,” Hermann and Hörtner agree.

More stories on the new AT&S facility in Leoben:
AT&S is building a new world class R&D facility at its HQ
Paying bonuses for finding new colleagues