Imec will open an R&D center in Qatar shortly, which will serve as the research institute’s hub in the GCC region. Supported by Invest Qatar and the Qatar Research, Development & Innovation Council (QRDI), imec’s new hub has already started hiring.

“Talent is extremely important,” Max Mirgoli, chief global development and venturing officer at imec, told EE Times. “For the last 40 years, we’ve been able to attract talent to imec [in Belgium and around the world], but recently, immigration rules have become more challenging.”

Engineers and academics from major sources of semiconductor talent, such as India, can apply for a U.S. H-1B visa, but the Trump administration has made it harder to get the H-1B visa and has made hiring H-1B workers more difficult and costly.

“This is a free gift to us, and to Qatar,” Mirgoli said. “[Qatar] is going to be a place where we can curate talent from the region.”

This includes semiconductor talent from countries like India, Turkey, Armenia, and Egypt, he said, noting that part of the deal is fast visa processing support from the Qatari government.

“[After university], the best place to train top engineers is imec,” Mirgoli said. “This is what we bring to [Qatar]. What we get is talent that couldn’t otherwise go to the U.S. or to Europe.”

University support

Since the pandemic, there is a new appreciation for the importance of semiconductors to all other industries, Mirgoli said. All countries are subject to

geopolitical issues and national security concerns, such as data sovereignty, but in the GCC in particular, countries want to diversify their economies away from oil and develop industries, including personalized medicine, advanced automotive systems, and physical AI.

While building a huge cutting-edge foundry would be “barking up the wrong tree” for most countries, including GCC countries, supporting semiconductor R&D and chip-design efforts is within reach, Mirgoli said, especially since advanced EDA tools are lowering the barriers to entry for chip design.

Qatar is working hard on building a talent pipeline to support these fields. The government has supported the development of several universities that can offer deep-tech degrees, including Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) and Qatar University, as well as satellite campuses of U.S. institutions like Carnegie Mellon.

Imec already contributes to curriculums at HBKU and Carnegie Mellon and offers internships to students. The new R&D center will offer internships, Ph.D.s, and postdocs in a variety of topics. These topics will include advanced computer architectures for AI and AI for chip design.

“AI for chip design is a great training ground for talent, because they learn the newest methodology of designing a chip,” Mirgoli said.

Projects at the R&D center will also include using imec’s semiconductor expertise in applications like healthcare. Imec has decades of experience developing diagnostic therapies, but future projects at the new R&D center could include genomics and proteomics.

Attracting startups Imec’s new GCC hub will also accelerate the development of semiconductor startups in the region by supporting them with imec’s advanced technology, plus prototyping and manufacturing facilities. Funding can be provided via the imec.xpand fund.

“A successful startup needs access to the market, access to capital, and access to talent,” Mirgoli said. “Access to talent is the weak leg of the equation.”

Qatar can provide access to the market, Mirgoli said, in a similar way to how the U.S. government buys technology from U.S. companies. Qatar can also provide capital for startups via its sovereign wealth fund, the QIA. Chip startups should consider making a base in the country to take advantage of these factors, he said.

“Startups can have many locations [thanks to remote working], many are already bi-coastal or European-U.S, so why not Qatar?” he said.

The GCC countries have different strategies for attracting startups, Mirgoli said, noting that some countries require a base in the country to get investment. Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, the QIA, doesn’t tend to require this as part of its investment deals, he added. “[Qatar] focuses a lot on talent development because they realize it’s the best thing to do,” he said. “Why Qatar [for imec]? We looked at where there is a desire to learn, and where we can contribute the most, and that’s here.”

By: DocMemory
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