Oscar is a technician at Jireh Semiconductor

In this episode of Talking Technicians you’ll meet Oscar Rodriguez, a technician at Jireh Semiconductor. Oscar shares his journey from Southern California to Portland, Oregon, and his transition from various service industry jobs to the semiconductor field. He discusses the importance of education, particularly the microelectronics program at Portland Community College, and the challenges he faced when he became a student. Oscar also reflects on his experiences at Jireh, the unexpected aspects of working in the industry, and offers valuable advice for aspiring technicians.

The Talking Technicians podcast is produced by MNT-EC, the Micro Nano Technology Education Center, through financial support from the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education grant program.

Opinions expressed on this podcast do not necessarily represent those of the National Science Foundation.

Join the conversation. If you are a working technician or know someone who is, reach out to us at info@talkingtechnicians.org.

Links from the show:

Episode Web Page:

https://micronanoeducation.org/students-parents/talking-technicians-podcast/

Careers at Jireh: https://www.aosmd.com/careers

Transcript

Peter Kazarinoff (00:00)
from MNT-EC, the Micro-Nano Technology Education Center. This is Talking Technicians, the podcast about technicians, who they are, what they do, and where they come from.

I'm your host, Peter Kazarinoff. I teach technicians and engineers at Portland Community College. In each episode, you'll meet a working technician and hear their story. That means real interviews with real technicians about their real jobs.

And at the end of each episode, you'll hear actions you can take if you want to be a technician too.

In this episode, you'll meet Oscar. Oscar is a technician at Jireh Semiconductor in Hillsborough, Oregon. Oscar, welcome to the podcast.

Oscar (00:44)
Thank you, Peter. I'm really glad to be here.

Peter Kazarinoff (00:47)
Thanks for talking with me, Oscar. I really appreciate it. So right now you live in Portland, Oregon, ⁓ outside of Hillsboro. How long have you been in Portland and what brought you there?

Oscar (00:59)
So I've been here coming up ⁓ five years since January. I decided to move up here just on a whim to be honest. I was searching for something and it was just the place where I was. Didn't feel like I couldn't grow and I missed the trees a lot.

It's because I come from, I lived in Southern California. you know, things, sunny temperatures, six to eight months out of the year and palm trees everywhere.

Peter Kazarinoff (01:33)
Right. So I'm really glad that you moved to the Portland area and now you were working at Gyro Semiconductor. Can you tell me about your job title and then what you do day to day at work?

Oscar (01:46)
Yeah, perfect. So I am a operating technician or tech one as they would call it. ⁓ So I just recently got this job. So I am fresh new. And so basically my first off day to day would be I would gown up quote unquote gown up, which is we put on these polyester suits that covers us from head to toe, just leaves the eyes, we put a mask on.

and gloves. That's mainly just to protect the the fab from any contaminations. From there, go I go ahead and start my actual job job, I guess we call it and I would classify as being the hands and tools of these hands and feet I mean of these tools or machines, I guess is how you guys will call it. I load and unload a bunch of pods where the wafers are actually inside of.

onto these tools, these tools didn't work on it, spit them back out, I grabbed them, put them onto the next tool to go on and to continue its way for production. Yeah.

Peter Kazarinoff (03:00)
And Oscar,

you mentioned that you recently got your job at Gyro Semiconductor. Do you remember what your first day was like walking into the factory? What did it feel like going to Gyro Semiconductor the first time?

Oscar (03:12)
man, it was something else. I think of myself, I go in there, I'm like, I'm in a spaceship now. Cause it looks very futuristic. though it's a pretty old and dated technology, it still feels very futuristic. Like I'm here creating microchips. That's insane.

Peter Kazarinoff (03:37)
And Oscar, you mentioned

that also you gown up and you wear these like white suits. So why do you have to ⁓ do that? Why do you have to do this gowning up ⁓ procedure?

Oscar (03:50)
So that is to protect the fabrication site or the fab as we call it from any contaminants from the outside world. So the fab has to be ⁓ what they would classify as a clean room and Jireh has one of the top clean rooms in

I guess the country right now, where basically the airflow and the inside of the manufacturing site has to be very, very clean. There has to be no particles or any like, think of dust or bacterias or even skin cells from the people who work there. ⁓ Even if one little particle of that got out to the wafers, it could ruin the wafers and thus ruin the microchips.

Peter Kazarinoff (04:40)
Right, so it's to make sure that there are no contaminants at all on those microchips and even little things like skin or stuff that comes off your clothing that could ruin that microchip. Yeah, so Oscar, let's talk a little bit about how you got to where you are now. You said you're currently working as an ⁓ operating technician or a tech one at Jireh Semiconductor. What was your work experience before working at Jireh?

Oscar (04:53)
Yes.

I'm pretty diverse I would say but mainly focused on the service sector so I started off as a busboy at restaurants and from there I transitioned on to the retail and I was there for a couple years went up up to supervisor got trained on there for leadership skills from there when I moved up my transition up here

I decided to do something completely different in terms of just retail and service industry. So I decided to go into oddly enough the cannabis industry. So it was a different, I would say a different vibe from all the other jobs that I had where it was more structured. It was more mundane and day to day was like very set.

and ⁓ set procedure and I feel like that also kind of helped me to then transition over to semiconductors because of they also have a set standard and set procedure and that you really have to follow.

Peter Kazarinoff (06:17)
Mm-hmm. Oscar, how did you go from like those service industry jobs that you were talking about, food service, ⁓ to now working in the semiconductor industry? What prepared you for working in the semiconductor industry?

Oscar (06:33)
I would have to give a lot of I guess, glory or thanks to PCC, a part of community college, for their microelectronics program that I decided to join. ⁓ I felt that industry, the semiconductor industry was a booming one and something that would have to, you know, we're always gonna be using our phones, we're always gonna be coming up with new technology and they always will have to have microchips on them.

So I decided, know, this is something new, different from me. ⁓ But why not? You know, let's try it out. Let's see how it goes.

Peter Kazarinoff (07:12)
Oscar, how did you find the Portland Community College Microelectronics program? ⁓ Because microelectronics isn't something that everybody thinks about as careers.

Oscar (07:23)
True, true, going to my first class, was like, wow, there's not that many of us here. What's going on? I thought this would be like very popular or something. ⁓ But oddly enough, I was listening to a podcast early in 2020, no, late 2023. And they ⁓ were talking about the CHIPS Act, the ⁓ government initiative to...

To give money to semiconductor companies to restore that that industry here in the United States And that kind of perked my ears up I was like, oh this is something I could potentially look into, you know, I was in the transition mode. I was like I gotta do something new This came up and I was like, let me look into it From there. I of course did like what anybody would do Google

go on to Google, what is a semi-conductors? ⁓ From there, it went from a down to a rabbit hole, just learning about them. And then figuring out that Portland Community College had a program dedicated to it. ⁓ I began reading up on that. I got really excited and I messaged Bill Manley at Career Services. He was the direct connection for me to get into the program. So,

And from there, was just a slow, what is it, a snowballing from there.

Peter Kazarinoff (08:51)
Oscar, what was the hardest part of school for you going from working and now going into community college and learning about microelectronics and microchips? What were some of the like the roadblocks or tough parts of school for you?

Oscar (09:06)
I would say transitioning back into a student mindset. ⁓ It's something that, you know, I graduated from high school and roughly almost coming up 10 years now. ⁓ So transitioning my mind from...

you know, just tell me what to do and I'll do it to, okay, tell me how to think, basically teach me how to think, teach me how to learn this new concept, teaching me this new thing was definitely something that I had to like rewire my brain to be more open to these, what they were telling me and what they were teaching me. That plus the balancing of work too was also kind of a hurdle there sometimes.

just like anyone. ⁓ and, but another thing I would say is the financial struggles as you know, it's colleges, this unfortunately is expensive and it's a pretty, you know, it's a commitment that we, someone who would have to do, especially if they're going for a two year associates. So that came into play too, but I got really lucky with financial aid and scholarships too.

Peter Kazarinoff (10:23)
Great. So Oscar, I've got a good idea of your background and your journey up to the Portland Community College Microelectronics Program. Once you started the program, how did you eventually move on to working at Jireh? How did you transition from being in community college now to being in a technician? How did that work?

Oscar (10:43)
so I'm this past ⁓ at the beginning of this year basically I was ready to you move on from my previous job on to okay let me get something get my foot into the door into this industry right let me just so can go ahead and get experience right now so I can put the theory to practice. ⁓

So from there I began to look around for any jobs, potential jobs, whether it be, and I applied pretty much almost every place that was available here in Portland, Microchip, ADI, I think Intel too, but I was kind of hesitant during that beginning of the year kind of thing because of Intel, but other than that, there was a bunch of emailing to my professors.

Sending them my resume and then giving it back with some you know hints and tricks and stuff like that. I'll change this change that and from there we had the opportunity to go with PCC to a tour to Gyro and that really opened the door for me to be like, okay, let me

send my resume to the senior ⁓ HR guy who I just met at the tour too. So hey, I'm here and I'm open to work and I got pretty lucky. I got picked and I was able to get an interview and get the job too.

Peter Kazarinoff (12:16)
Wow, Oscar, so going on that tour, that made a really big difference. And then like meeting face to face somebody at Jireh that then you could like talk with and send your resume to, that sounded like that made a big difference.

Oscar (12:31)
It did, it did indeed. I do credit that to, and also my teachers and professors who also reached out on my behalf ⁓ for getting me the job.

Peter Kazarinoff (12:42)
Oscar, what's something unexpected about working as a technician that you only figured out once you got started? You learn about all this stuff in school, but then you actually go and work as a technician. What was something unexpected that you found out once you started working?

Oscar (12:58)
The entire industry was very unexpected to me because I'm very new to it. yes, I have heard, you know, from other classmates who were already in the industry and from my professors about it, but actually going in there and not only seeing how it's actually the process is, but also then adapting to their way of doing things was...

⁓ Unexpected, not unexpected, but it was the flow of it was unexpected where I was like, it was pretty easy to get into the flow because there was trainers there, there was people there who were helping me out. I didn't have to figure it out all on my own kind of thing. So that was a little bit unexpected to me as to my previous jobs where I would have to kind of figure it out on my own and ⁓ do it all by myself.

Peter Kazarinoff (13:54)
And Oscar, ⁓ how did your life change after you became a technician at Jireh? You were going to community college and you said at least at the beginning you were working and now working as a technician. ⁓ How did your life change ⁓ once you started?

Oscar (14:11)
There's definitely a big change I would say that ⁓ I'm only six months in right but I can already see myself growing a lot in the industry I can I have this new seed of hope basically that I'm nurturing every day that I go to work where I'm seeing okay where can I fit in ⁓

the... what's it called? The... this... and I'm just trying to appreciate it all and it's giving me more time to reflect on what I was doing and kind of like patting myself on the back like, hey, I got here. I'm here. So there's different... it's definitely been a different vibe. There's been new hope in me. There's like this, uh, I can do anything feeling kind of thing.

Peter Kazarinoff (15:09)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Like a feeling of accomplishment and now a feeling that like you actually have some real skills, some real abilities. You learned something that was really difficult and now you've like accomplished that because you actually do that at work day to day. Yeah, I can like identify with that and totally understand what you mean. So Oscar, what advice do you have for current students or sort of like you a couple years ago?

who might want to transition their careers and work in the semiconductor industry, what would you say to those like first time community college students or people who are looking for something new?

Oscar (15:48)
I say just get your feet wet, go for it. ⁓ Understand that you're going into a completely different ⁓ environment. ⁓ Be adaptable, be teachable, and be excited most of all. If you let that curiosity ⁓ bloom and grow in you,

that would ⁓ really help you out in not just this industry, but pretty much any other industry.

Peter Kazarinoff (16:20)
Well, Oscars, thank you so much for spending some time with me today talking about working at community college and now ultimately working at Jireh Semiconductor as a technician.

Oscar (16:30)
Thank you, thank you so much for this opportunity.

Peter Kazarinoff (16:32)
and please keep in touch.

Oscar (16:35)
Thank you.