Twenty years and counting

When I joined the Microcontamination staff in 1987, I didn't know the difference between memory and logic, except that for myself, the first was tricky and the second elusive. I thought a particle counter was just a specialized form of accounting tool and was amazed that really thin wafers could be made out of silicone gel. I learned quickly what the greatest sources of contamination were (people) and the best sources for technical information (again, people). Yield took on a whole new meaning that had nothing to do with agricultural production or municipal bonds.

When I came on board I was also a novice in the ways of the business-to-business trade magazine. Luckily, I had many mentors to help me figure out the whys and wherefores of my chosen field, from the mysteries of the "ad-to-edit ratio" to why people didn't have to pay to get a subscription, to how a magazine like MICRO balances its expenses and revenues and actually makes money. Most importantly, I learned that strong editorial content, with focused technical information that helps the reader do his or her job, was crucial to making MICRO successful. That, and the sales staff selling some ads.

I've found out over the years that when it comes to semiconductor manufacturing and technology, the learning curve never ends. Just when you delude yourself into believing you may have figured it out, another piece of steaming hot humble pie is served up. Whether it's deep-UV lithography, atomic force microscopy, CMP, 300-mm wafers, nanoscale metrology, low-k dielectric materials, or sophisticated software, technological advancement has been and continues to be relentless. There have also been many transformations on the business side both profound and unforeseen, such as the rise and fall of Japan Inc., the advent of the foundry model, and the increased impact of the ups and downs of the stock market on companies' decision making. Trying to stay abreast of the rapid, multilayered changes in the semiconductor realm has been a formidable challenge for MICRO, but also one of the reasons we keep coming back for more.

Although the monumental advances in chipmaking technology that have occurred since the magazine's birth in May 1983 are indeed astounding, it's the applications fostered by those wee circuits that truly boggle the mind. Twenty years ago, the true potential of the digital realm was just beginning to be tapped. Personal computers were a radical new concept and fax machines an amazing piece of tech. Mobile phones were rare, and there was only one kind of mail. We listened to prerecorded music on vinyl LPs and cassettes, and the movies' special effects were mostly about making scale models and blowing up stuff. Presenters at technical symposia went through a lot of grease pencils and typewriter ribbons readying their transparencies for those state-of-the-art overhead projectors. Few foresaw the coming ubiquitousness of the chip and its progeny, from the World Wide Web and global wireless communication, to Playstations and laptops, from cars packing more processor power than Apollo 11 to "intelligent" appliances and "smart" houses.

In celebrating our 20th anniversary, we've tried not to cross the line between reasonable, good-nautured reflection and hyperbolic overkill. It's one thing to be proud of one's accomplishments and success over the years, to ponder the changes seen and recall some noteworthy events. But it's quite another to gush.

We tried to keep these pitfalls in mind as we decided how to recognize MICRO's 20-year run. The special anniversary coverage in this issue results from our staff's efforts to mix serious analysis with personal anecdotes, historical perspectives with futurist musings, the profound with the whimsical. We asked many industry veterans, some of them long-time supporters of the magazine, to offer their thoughts on the last 20 as well as the next 20. We also dug into our archives and dusted off some interesting and quirky facts, figures, and voices from our past. There's even a contest where you can win a copy of Beyond Imagination, a handsome coffee-table book about the history of the semiconductor industry.

We hope you enjoy reading the issue as much as we did putting it together.

Tom Cheyney
Editor
tom.cheyney@cancom.com