Jeonbuk National University (JBNU) has been selected for the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy's semiconductor talent development program, the 'Semiconductor Major Track Project' (Project Director: Professor Ki‑Hyun Kim).

Administered by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology, the project aims to establish a demand-driven system for cultivating talent in the semiconductor industry and to train 120 bachelor’s-level, industry-oriented professionals over three years.

With the government's recent emphasis on fostering the semiconductor industry, including a campaign to train 100,000 semiconductor professionals, JBNU is expected to grow into a key institution for semiconductor talent development.

Accordingly, JBNU, centered on the Department of Electronic Engineering, has formed a consortium with nine semiconductor specialist companies—△앰코테크놀로지 코리아, △키파운드리, △에이디테크놀로지, △퀄리타스반도체, △코드세미콘, △오디텍, △피앤엘세미, △시지트로닉스, and △룩센테크놀러지—and with the Gimje City Agricultural Technology Center (Smart Farm Innovation Valley), and will receive KRW 900 million in project funding through 2025.

Through this, JBNU's Department of Electronic Engineering plans to select beneficiary students this July and, in cooperation with consortium companies, operate industry-specialized educational programs — including Industry–University Collaboration projects on IoT semiconductor design (semiconductor device design, analog circuit design, system design), employment-linked field training, and practice-oriented internships — to cultivate bachelor's-level semiconductor design specialists with practical skills.

As part of the project, JBNU will also operate, starting in September, an employment-linked standard field training program for undergraduates in the Department of Electronic Engineering with Amkor Technology, the world's second-largest packaging company with approximately KRW 7 trillion in annual sales and about 70,000 employees, to train R&D semiconductor engineers.

Amkor Technology has already completed the selection of 17 fourth-year undergraduates; these students will receive practical training through the standard field training program. If the selected students meet the qualifications required by the companies, most are expected to be converted to full-time positions. Discussions are also underway to operate employment-linked field training and internship programs with AD Technology, a design-solution partner of Samsung Electronics' foundry.

The project will also be linked with the master's-level "Next-Generation System Semiconductor Design Specialist Training Project" (Principal Investigator: Professor Jong‑Yeol Lee, Department of Electronic Engineering; five years; total KRW 1.11 billion), which was selected last year and is currently underway, to establish a virtuous cycle enabling students to progress naturally from the bachelor's program to the master's program.

Professor Ki‑Hyun Kim, who serves as Project Director, said, "The domestic semiconductor industry has experienced steadily increasing demand for personnel due to rapid growth and increased investment, but has suffered from a chronic shortage of talent, and companies have spent significant time and resources retraining new hires. Through this project, we will overcome the workforce shortage in the semiconductor sector, which has emerged as a national core strategic industry, and devote full efforts to cultivating semiconductor specialists at the bachelor's and master's levels to propel South Korea into a comprehensive semiconductor powerhouse and a global leader."