Like any engineering activity, KLA’s Learning and Knowledge Services team (LKS) tests training and documentation materials to continuously improve the curriculums and, as Efren Lopez, senior director, KLA Learning and Knowledge Services, explains, “get our people ready for volume production.” Instructors, he says, continue to work closely in adjusting training content to support the tool availability commitments KLA makes to customers.
“As KLA’s service business expands, demand to train and certify these employees has doubled. Ultimately, our job at LKS is to make sure all of our customer service talent at all levels have the background to engage customers who expect to maximize their fabs and meet their output goals.”
Efren Lopez, senior director, KLA Learning and Knowledge Services
Advances in Technology and Chip Demand Speed Innovation and Expansion of KLA Training
As demand for semiconductors surged and customers ramped during COVID-19, LKS had to adapt to the pandemic restrictions. Like many educators, LKS introduced online coursework and modified the curriculum.
Before the pandemic, LKS offered all training in person at KLA sites. Faced with travel restrictions that hampered in-person training, LKS began to offer virtual coursework and self-paced training modules for newly hired customer service engineers (CSEs). With COVID-19 restrictions largely lifted, new CSEs are continuing to train virtually for several months while preparing for in-person training at an LKS location.
Getting KLA Training Closer to Customers in East Asia
Due to semiconductor industry growth in East Asia, LKS has expanded in the region.
LKS opened a new training center in Yongin, South Korea in 2023, furthering KLA’s strategic and continuous commitment to invest in the country’s semiconductor industry and bring localized technical training for employees and customers closer to manufacturers.
Also helping to advance regional growth is an LKS center in Hsinchu, Taiwan and a training facility that opened in Tainan City in 2020, both offering enhanced support for key customers’ most advanced technology development.
As with training sites in South Korea and globally, LKS instructors in Taiwan use a combination of classroom learning and augmented reality – or AR – to support customer requirements and career growth among KLA Taiwan’s technical employees.
Because technology needs vary from one country and fab to another, customers often have different generations or options of tool platforms, which requires CSEs to stay current on KLA’s newer and older products.
“With growing numbers of tools deploying at customer sites and technologies becoming more complex, we’ve added more tools to classrooms,” Efren says.
Read how KLA develops Services employees to keep pace with customer needs.
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