May 31, 2001 – San Jose, CA – The Semiconductor Industry Suppliers Association (SISA) and Semiconductor Equipment and Equipment International’s (SEMI) North America division have agreed to merge programs, operations and staff.
Prior to its dissolution, the SISA Board of Directors had representatives from 18 supplier companies, 15 of which were also SEMI member companies. Additionally, four members of the SISA board were also members of SEMI’s International Board of Directors.
The individuals previously constituting the SISA board of directors will join the SEMI North America Advisory Board, which is responsible for setting priorities and direction for SEMI’s North American operations.
“The merger will strengthen the technical depth of SEMI programs and consolidate the supplier voice in the region,” said Stanley T. Myers, president and CEO of SEMI. “We warmly welcome the SISA staff into the SEMI organization and look forward to enhanced service for our membership.”
Added Edward D. Graham Jr., who served as president of SISA, “This is really a homecoming for SISA members. I am extremely proud of SISA’s accomplishments and the important programs that have been developed over many years. Now, it is a service to our collective membership to reunite the two operations and provide the U.S.-based supplier community with a single, global organization to represent their interests and serve their needs.”
This move follows recent news that SEMI was forming an internal committee of “major equipment suppliers” to act as an interface with other segments of the industry — particularly chipmakers — and other consortia, such as SEMATECH.
Since its formation, SISA has been dedicated to sponsoring programs that enable its members to cooperatively develop technology, build customer relationships and solve common problems of a non-competitive nature.
The organization began in the mid 1980’s when a group of SEMI member companies launched an independent association, then called SEMI/SEMATECH, to interface with SEMATECH, an industry consortium representing US industry technology interests and competitiveness. By that time, SEMI had adopted a global charter that prevented it from acting as the US-only
liaison to SEMATECH.
With the decline of trade frictions and growth of global ties in the semiconductor industry, SEMATECH changed its focus toward an international agenda; US government funding of the consortium was discontinued; the organization signified its new orientation by changing its name to International SEMATECH; it invited broader supplier-interface participation; and the supplier interface organization to SEMATECH, SEMI/SEMATECH, became SISA.
While SISA and SEMI had developed distinct industry activities, there was significant overlap in their constituencies. Of the 120 SISA members, 103 simultaneously belonged to SEMI.
SEMI and SISA had often worked together on public policy activities. A major objective of the merger is to increase influence on North America public policy and interaction of the associations’ membership with the device community.
“The merger will strengthen our advocacy in North America by involving more executives in driving SEMI’s public policy,” said Victoria Hadfield, VP of public policy for SEMI. “It also unifies the voice of the regional supplier community, which eliminates the potential for occasional ambiguity that might occur by the existence of two groups serving North American infrastructure companies.”
The merger also complements continuing efforts by SEMI to delineate a regional identity for its North America region operations that is consistent with those in Asia Pacific, Europe, Japan and Korea. SEMI will locate the North America region operations headquarters in Austin, TX, while continuing existing operations in Washington D.C. and Boston. The association’s global operations headquarters will continue to be located in San Jose, California.
SEMI has offered employment to the existing SISA staff. The SEMI staff in Austin will be consolidated with the existing SISA staff in a new facility in the near future. Until this new office location is established, the SISA staff will continue to occupy their present offices at the International SEMATECH site.