Get a PhD in some kind of esoteric field like chemical kinetics and then spend a decade learning about oxide surface conditioning under someone who spent their life working on it.

None of this stuff is published (externally) and there are no discussion forums or stack overflows to help you either. You need to get through academia, prove yourself, and then you can start working on a chance to get access to the trade secrets that make it possible.

After all that you will be placed as a researcher on a handful of steps in the multi-thousand step process of making SOTA wafers. And probably not make crazy money, but at this point, you're not in it for the money anyway.

> None of this stuff is published (externally)

It's important to note that it wasn't always like this. Up until the mid-90s this stuff was all published in the open literature fairly quickly.

There has been a steady culture shift towards ultrasecrecy since then.

Realistically, identify the next technology that will need such wizards and get into a PhD program to research that technology.