(JW Insights) Mar 22 -- China has been the world's top region in IC design talent supply due to its numerous higher education institutes and the large number of graduates from semiconductor-related majors, said a recent Digitimes Asia report on the supply and demand of global semiconductor design talents in 2021.

China-based IC design houses are estimated to employ 89,000 semiconductor design engineers. Including China-based IDMs/Foundries and Internet giants/OEMs, the total number of semiconductor design engineers reach 98,000. While the total number in the US is 157,000 employees.

The global supply of talent from IC design-related universities and schools is currently concentrated in the United States, the Chinese mainland, the Taiwan region, and India. According to Synopsys' estimation, these four locations are also the main places of employment for IC design engineers, said Digitimes Asia in its report on March 21.

US-based companies are the main source of chip design demand, accounting for 43% of the global demand for semiconductor design talent, followed by the Chinese mainland and the Taiwan region, which accounted for 27% and 14%, respectively, said the report.

According to the "China IC industry Talent White Paper," the number of IC design employees in China reached 221,000 in 2021, and local design engineers accounted for 55% of the figure.

Although China is the largest supply region of tech graduates, it also has a lot of emerging industries like software and the internet that have job offers. Therefore, the percentage of graduates who ended up working in the IC sector is not very high. However, the US has been tightening its grip on tech sanctions. China has felt the pressure and will accelerate its push toward technology supply chain autonomy. It's expected that they will use incentives to promote the IC design sector, said the report.

Many overseas corporations also employ a large number of local talents from China. For example, Qualcomm has nearly 5,000 employees in China, with most being R&D personnel, said the Digitimes Asia report.

The number of semiconductor design engineers employed in North America totals around 87,000, with many engineers coming from foreign regions like India and China.