Many great questions and comments after I posted that Nigeria must develop a semiconductor & microelectronics roadmap. I get the point: why are startup funds in Nigeria not investing in these types of businesses? The simple response: complicated.
For Nigeria, we need a national vision on semiconductors and microelectronics, and it is time to set up something like MOSIS or Europractice. Largely, a foundry which all universities in Nigeria will key-in, making it possible for students to experience end-to-end chip design, from schematics to test chip from the foundry.
I am a semiconductor veteran. Since Prof Nwachukwu introduced us to Semiconductor Physics in Federal University of Technology Owerri and Prof Ejimanya explained Transistors (Prof Chukwudebe and Prof Ndinechi took the Microelectronics part), my interest in the area has remained unalloyed. FASMICRO, my business, is Africa’s only programmable microprocessor knowledge partner of Intel; see at Intel.com website ).
In Carnegie Mellon, I taught electronics and in Analog Devices, I built and shipped products. This photo was my test system for a photonic system which can enable information to move in circuits, not as electrons, but light [Tekedia Capital just invested in a quantum computing startup which makes qubits, the basic information unit in quantum computers, analogous to bits in classical computers]. My book in this space received the IGI Global Book of the Year award. So, I understand this industry.
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You can make a lot of money from this, but it is one of the most challenging domains in technology. Semiconductors & Microelectronics is not like software where you can launch in the morning and provide an update in the evening if things go wrong. In other words, developing that industry does not happen by chance. Good People, you require a national vision to make it work in a developing country like Nigeria because the human element is critical. Yes, you need well-trained students as feeders.
So, I welcome your comments and be open to support. But so far, I do not see how to put money on this without a talent pipeline. But if we do, economic glory awaits as most things they do in Aba, Ibadan, Kano, etc will improve as electronics makes them better.
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“I am tempted to suggesting that this Professor may wish to collaborate with NUC and the 274 Nigerian Universities plus Polytechnics to possibly mass produce Nigerian undergraduates in this field” – not really. Please, the talent pipeline is not just having many universities offering courses in electronics. Note that even the US has a shortage of these skills. TSMC has been importing people from Taiwan to help with its business in the US. You may have more than 3,000 colleges and universities, but only about 50 produce these graduates at a decent level of quality. If you run the numbers, that is about 5000 students which is way short of the industry needs. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tsmc-complains-t-enough-skilled-100125351.html
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