SEMI: The growth of a global association

05/01/1997

Semi: The growth of a global association

Jonathan Davis, SEMI, Mountain View, California

Like Solid State Technology, now celebrating an illustrious 40 years, the growth of Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI), a global industry association, is inextricably connected to microelectronics and the advancements of the Information Age. In the early days, much of the equipment used to produce integrated circuits was engineered and built by the same companies that manufactured semiconductor devices. A capital equipment infrastructure did not exist, and the few companies that made tools struggled for customer recognition.

A decade after the launch of Solid State Technology, vendors of processing equipment and materials were more prevalent. However, these companies still participated alongside IC manufacturers, PC board makers, and other component manufacturers in broad-based trade shows.

By 1970, a group of vendors had become dissatisfied with the attention they were receiving at the prevailing shows and decided to form an independent organization dedicated exclusively to their industry segment - semiconductor equipment, materials, and services. They named their organization SEMI - Semiconductor Equipment and Materials Institute - and called the first trade show SEMICON. William B. Hugle, Hugle Industries; Philip L. Gregory, Raytheon Semiconductor; and Fred W. Kulicke, Kulicke & Soffa Industries, led the effort to organize the first SEMICON and were among the founders of SEMI.

J. Trevor Law, Galamar Industries, and John Dannelly, Thermco Products, joined Hugle, Gregory, and Kulicke as officers of the new association. Howard Moss, Texas Instruments; Roger S. Borovoy, Fairchild Camera & Instrument; and Donald C. Southerland, Dupont de Nemours & Co. were the first directors (Fig. 1).

Figure 1. SEMI`s first board of directors, 1970, top left: Robert J. Schriener, William B. Hugle, Philip L. Gregory, Donald C. Sutherland; seated: Howard Moss, Trevor Law, and John Dannelley. Fred W. Kulicke and Roger S. Borovoy are not shown. (Photo courtesy of SEMI.)

The original SEMICON opened in 1971 at the San Mateo County Fairgrounds in California. It had less than 100 booths and 80 exhibitors. Despite dire predictions that it would fail, 2800 visitors attended the show and realized that an important new venue had arisen for those interested in semiconductor manufacturing technology and the specific tools, materials, and services it required. The following year SEMICON had its first sell-out year.

In 1973, SEMI sponsored its first East Coast show, SEMICON/East, at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, NY. Two years later, SEMICON/Europa debuted in Zurich, Switzerland. Then, in 1977, SEMI sponsored the first SEMICON/Japan.

As the need for other such trade shows developed, the SEMI board of directors decreed that any new show should be located for the convenience of the semiconductor industry and to fulfill the needs of SEMI members wishing to market their products. SEMI, since that time, has strategically located expositions in emerging semiconductor manufacturing regions. Worldwide, more than 200,000 people attend SEMI expositions annually.

Trade shows, however, were not the only impetus for SEMI`s creation. The founders also recognized the need for market data, technical information, advocacy on public policy issues, and industry standardization. From the earliest days, SEMI was in the information business.

Mounting inefficiencies became apparent in the nascent industry as dissimilar materials specifications proliferated. By some counts, as many as 2000 different specs for silicon wafers were in use when SEMI`s founders were formulating the scope of the new association. The abundance of specifications hindered inventory management and made it difficult for the supplier base to meet customer requirements. Recognizing this impediment and anticipating future needs, SEMI formed a Standards Committee whose purpose was to work toward achieving standardization of specifications on materials, equipment, and processes used in semiconductor manufacturing. J. Trevor Law formed the first silicon standards committee, and Charles Smith, sales manager at Ventron, became the committee`s chairman. In 1974, George Moore of Monsanto was appointed committee chairman and announced that 80-85% of the wafers shipped by the industry complied with SEMI specifications. Standardization in the industry had been accomplished much more rapidly than had been thought possible.

As the semiconductor industry matured with the global implications pursuant, the SEMI Standards Program expanded to fill the needs of its membership worldwide. The program now provides a forum for industry professionals from Asia, Europe, and North America to formulate voluntary consensus specifications for the semiconductor equipment, materials, and flat panel display industries. These efforts are coordinated through more than 150 committees, subcommittees, and task forces meeting more than 500 times each year and culminate in the annual publication of the multivolume SEMI International Standards.

Like many institutions in the semiconductor community, SEMI and Solid State Technology, have a shared lineage. Sam Marshall, founding editor of SST was also responsible for organizing the initial SEMICON technical programs in 1972. Marshall coordinated SEMI programs for the next decade until Sam Harrell took over as SEMI advisor. Shortly thereafter, the task of organizing the technical programs became so immense that regional organizing committees were formed to plan and develop SEMI technical conferences. Thanks in part to the groundwork laid by Marshall and Harrell, SEMI has developed an extensive technical program structure. It covers the entire spectrum of semiconductor and FPD manufacturing and features leaders from academia who share information on the latest manufacturing breakthroughs, products, and process innovations. SEMI`s program offerings have steadily expanded to provide industry with business education, technical training, forecasting conferences, trade missions, executive seminars, and a host of informational workshops.

The 1980s were a period of trade friction within the device manufacturing community. SEMI made the commitment, unusual at the time, to embrace and more fully serve the international community. By 1983, with an increasingly global constituency, and trade shows and programs in Asia, Europe, and the US, SEMI made a significant change to its name. By substituting "International" for "Institute," SEMI signified that it served a global industry and proclaimed that international cooperation would be the expedient path to industry development. In 1987, Shigeo Takayama, president of Hakuto Co. Ltd., was the first Japanese director on the board of SEMI. Soon after, Kazuo Ito, president and chairman of JEOL Ltd., and Shoichiro Yoshida of Nikon were elected to the board. Now, SEMI is guided by industry leaders from the US, Japan, Europe, and Korea.

Today, SEMI is a global industry association of nearly 1900 companies that participate in the $55 billion semiconductor and FPD industries (Fig. 2). SEMI is represented in all significant semiconductor manufacturing regions around the world by 11 offices in Asia/Pacific, Europe, Japan, North America, and Russia.

Figure 2. SEMI corporate members worldwide.

No account of SEMI`s history would be complete without mention of Bill Reed, who for 13 years guided the association as its president. During Bill`s tenure, SEMI grew from an 18-person office to a multifaceted global organization. Bill`s sudden passing in March occurred just nine weeks after his retirement.

Stanley Myers, former president of Siltec (now Mitsubishi Silicon America) and long-time SEMI board member, currently leads the association. As companies confront the transition to 300-mm wafers, the heightened need to cultivate a skilled workforce and massive capital requirements to maintain research and development, Myers plans for SEMI to take an increasingly proactive role in facilitating industry advancement.

According to Myers, the association must now position semiconductor equipment and materials providers as the fundamental enablers of technological progress and ensure that the message is recognized by customers and industry, government, and civic leaders.

SEMI salutes the 40 years of valuable coverage that Solid State Technology has produced. The semiconductor and semiconductor equipment and materials industry is driven by a thirst for information and technical quality. Thanks to SST for a job well done and best wishes for continued success.

Acknowledgment

The author wishes to thank Walt Mathews, Dori Jones, and Rose Eufinger of Mathews and Clark Communications for their assistance and collective institutional memory.

Jonathan Davis is a public relations manager at SEMI, 805 East Middlefield Rd., Mountain View, CA 94043-4080; ph 415/940-6937, fax 415/940-7970, e-mail [email protected]. Visit SEMI at www.semi.org.