Serving a diverse customer base
10/01/1997
The greatest trap editors can get into is to lose track of their audience. Ergo, readership studies. Magazines, like other marketers of product, conduct readership studies to see how they are being received by the customer.
As a result, we learn a lot about that customer — in our case, you, the reader. In looking at our latest subscriber profile study, conducted by LRM Research, I thought that you might like to learn something about your fellow readers.
The types of companies where you work are varied. A large part (33%) are captive semiconductor manufacturers, which is no surprise. The next largest (19%) are the equipment suppliers. The remainder (48%) are spread over labs, research institutes, materials manufacturers, and educational institutions. An amazing statistic is that almost 30% of you have been in the electronics industry for more than 20 years and over 50% have been reading SST for 4–10 years running.
The major job functions are R&D (27%) and general/corporate management (21%). The remainder comprise a number of associated disciplines, including wafer fab production (front-end and back-end), reliability and QC, engineering support, plant and facilities functions, and design.
One interesting aspect of the study was reader use of the Web. A full 82% have Web access and 56% access it either every day or several times a week. When asked what type of information you retrieve over the Web, more than 60% said product information to help with purchase decisions, and 58% replied that it was used to gather technical facts.
So how does one provide information to such a broad base? The answer lies in providing both technical information and news about the industry — a one-stop-shopping experience. In order to accomplish this, we have put careful thought into the 1998 Editorial Calendar. Included in the calendar is every topic of importance to the growing semiconductor industry.
We will start the new year with reports on the new SIA Roadmap, the all-important blueprint for the fabs of tomorrow. To concentrate on the hot topics of 1998, we will increase our deposition, etching, and lithography coverage.
As a bonus, two special series will run in 1998. Early in the year, we will feature a series on productivity, an issue that is critical for all fabs as geometries shrink and optimizing yield from 300-mm wafers becomes paramount. Later, we will deal with interconnects. Interconnect technologies are becoming a major focus as feature sizes diminish, the number of metal and dielectric layers increase, and the industry contemplates shifts from aluminum to copper and low dielectric-constant insulators.
The usual staples of lithography—photomasks and resists—will be thoroughly covered, of course, as will vacuum technology, CMP, deposition, gas handling, and many other topics.
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Solid State Technology looks forward to an exciting and prosperous year in the industry. Keep in touch and let us know how we're doing.
Paul Nesdore
Editor-in-Chief