Engineering Ahead of the Curve: Yadro and ITMO Train the Next Generation of Semiconductor Engineers
The joint educational track prepares engineers to develop microprocessors, accelerators and high-performance computing systems. Students will work on real-world engineering challenges and have an opportunity to intern at Yadro as early as summer 2027.
Russia's microelectronics industry is facing a serious shortage of skilled professionals. According to the Basic Workforce Training Center under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, approximately 5,300 positions remained unfilled at the end of 2025, and the gap is growing. At the Microelectronics Forum this fall, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Vasily Shpak said the industry now needs nearly 7,000 professionals. A new program launched jointly by Yadro and ITMO University focuses on developing microprocessors, specialized accelerators and high-performance computing systems, helping strengthen Russia's engineering talent pipeline. The program began in the fall 2026 semester at ITMO's Faculty of Software Engineering and Computer Systems, as part of its bachelor's degree program in Computer Systems and Technologies. Enrollment is capped at 20 students. Those who achieve the strongest results will have an opportunity to intern at Yadro next summer.
Industry Experts Lead the Courses
Students are now studying subjects that, until recently, were familiar only to a relatively small circle of specialists. Sergey Tabunshchik, a faculty member, teaches a course on RISC-V processor architecture and microarchitecture. Nikita Polyakov, a lead RISC-V core architect, and Roman Popov, a lead hardware and software design engineer who is also an ITMO graduate, teach specialized courses on superscalar architectures and graphics and vector accelerators. Igor Smirnov, Director of IT Infrastructure and Automation for the semiconductor product development team, teaches students how IT infrastructure works at microelectronics companies.
The curriculum also includes courses in digital signal processing and hardware block modeling with SystemC. This knowledge is expected to prove useful in developing processor cores, systems-on-chip and tools for verifying hardware designs.
“Having engineers with expert-level experience involved in teaching allows us to bring real engineering challenges into the classroom and prepare future specialists for hands-on work developing semiconductor products for a range of applications. This approach helps students choose the right professional path and get ready to work in the industry,” said Pavel Kustarev, dean of ITMO's Faculty of Software Engineering and Computer Systems.
Graduate Students Build Development Prototypes
Yadro's track record of working with universities offers a glimpse of the company's broader strategy. In September 2022, it announced that its Digital Circuit Synthesis School (Shkola sinteza tsifrovykh skhem in Russian) would become a nationwide network of educational clusters. ITMO, the National Research University of Electronic Technology (MIET), the Higher School of Economics, Innopolis University and other partners joined the initiative.
On May 23, 2024, at the CIPR conference, MIET and Yadro unveiled Hackee, an educational microcontroller based on the RISC-V architecture. Graduate students in their joint program developed it in collaboration with company engineers. The design was based on the open-source SCR1 core, and the prototype was manufactured at the Mikron plant using a 180-nanometer process. The project demonstrated that students could take a chip design through the entire development cycle, from a digital circuit to a manufactured experimental prototype.
“Building a strong Russian computer architecture community requires training a new generation of engineers who understand how modern processors and specialized accelerators work and can tackle complex challenges in designing, verifying and preparing them for mass production,” said Dmitry Gusev, Director of Processor Architecture Development at Yadro's Semiconductor Product Development Division.
In June 2025, Yadro announced that 250 places had been allocated across programs run with leading technical universities. This year, the company also announced the start of a new academic year at its Digital Circuit Synthesis School. The network now includes 26 clusters at Russian universities, in Belarus and at the company's Moscow office.
There is also a notable international example. Samsung has expanded its educational program in Vietnam by adding a course on semiconductor manufacturing technologies. The company aims to train more than 2,200 participants in partnership with approximately 20 universities and colleges.
AI Needs Hardware
The open RISC-V architecture gives Russian companies an opportunity to design their own processor cores for servers, telecommunications equipment, industrial automation and Internet of Things devices. At the same time, the industry needs specialists in functional verification, who check whether a digital circuit works correctly before a chip is manufactured. An error caught after this stage can make redesigning the project extremely expensive. Another important area is the development of specialized computing accelerators. Demand for these chips is growing alongside the expansion of AI.
The future of Russia's microelectronics industry depends not only on building new factories and investing in equipment, but also on having engineers capable of independently designing advanced systems.
