Sign up for office hours with Alumni in Residence Sam Wang *76 MAE! 

Sam’s goal as a GradFUTURES Alum In Residence is to translate his areas of interest and industrial experience to help Princeton students to attain skills and gain access to the semiconductor workplace.

Office hour topics can include but not limited to the following:

• Chip war as one of the top agenda of the US government
• The race of advanced semiconductor technology
• Global dependence and self-reliance of high tech supply chain
• Chips as the core of AI capable products
• Semiconductor technology is limiting the growth of AI
• Power consumption of AI capable data centers, semiconductor manufacturers and GPU, ASIC chips
• The reality of water consumption and reclamation in chip industry
• Moore’s Law and the growing importance of packaging technologies for high performance computing
• Understand the manufacturing cost for a better negotiation with suppliers
• The importance of global experience and career planning
• Customer services and company culture for a successful business
• Challenges in dealing with international companies

With a 48-year career in semiconductor industry, Samuel Wang has continued his own research work with the up-to-date knowledge about technology advancement, sustainability issues, market dynamics, competitive landscape, capital investment and geopolitical trends in the supply demand of chips.  Sam (*76 Princeton PhD alum from Aerospace and Mechanical Science Department) retired in March 2024 from his last full-time job as the VP of Research on Semiconductor Manufacturing and Technologies Services, Gartner Inc., a global leader in providing the technology information to the executives of industrial leading companies. At Gartner, Sam has been the authority in analyzing the market trend of semiconductor manufacturing technologies and foundry supply demand. He has advised vendors and investor clients on various aspects of the semiconductor industry through hundreds of articles published, daily phone calls, e-mail inquiries, clients visits and presentations.     

Prior to 2010, he was the President of SMIC America, the largest wafer foundry company in China.  In 9 years, Sam built the marketing/sales team from nothing to have generated over US$900M or 60% of company revenue annually.   Sam has been living in Silicon Vally for over 40 years. As he was born in Taiwan, Sam continues to maintain strong contacts with industrial friends in Asia.