ISMI News

U.S. Can Still Compete with Rest of World in Semiconductor Manufacturing and R&D, TI Executive to Tell Upcoming ISMI Symposium in Austin

Austin, TX (7 October 2004) - American communities can hold onto high-tech manufacturing if they become creative in partnering with companies and give employers solid financial reasons to stay in town, a key Texas Instruments (TI) executive will tell the ISMI Symposium later this month.

Shaunna Sowell, vice president and manager of TI's DFAB facility, said the giant chip-maker's recent decision to build a new, state-of-the-art fab in Richardson, Texas was the result of innovative thinking among TI, the local community, and the state. Sowell will be a keynote speaker at the inaugural ISMI Symposium on Manufacturing Effectiveness, scheduled Oct. 25-28 at the Omni Hotel in Austin.

Open to the public, the ISMI Symposium is organized by the International SEMATECH Manufacturing Initiative (ISMI), the world's only consortium devoted solely to solving semiconductor manufacturing issues.

In comments describing her talk, Sowell said there were two "primary drivers" for TI's decision to build a $3B, 300 mm fab in North Texas. "The first was the willingness of all parties concerned to create an economically feasible reason for TI to build in its home state. The second was the demonstrated ability of TI employees to compete with fabs worldwide."

The lesson Sowell plans to teach at the ISMI Symposium is that a manufacturing employment shift from the U.S. to lower-wage countries is not inevitable in the semiconductor industry.

"The writing is not on the wall, but it takes more than wishful thinking to curtail the mass movement of manufacturing to lower-cost producers," Sowell noted. "It takes a change in mindset and some creativity, but there is no reason that U.S. fabs can't compete in a global market. I will explain our decision to build our next facility in Richardson, Texas."

Also keynoting at the ISMI Symposium will be James E. Doran, executive vice president and board member of Spansion LLC and Senior Vice President for AMD. Doran will focus on how companies and communities can piece together the "competitive puzzle" to survive in an industry known for its "staggering" capital costs.

Elsewhere at the Symposium, manufacturing professionals will present dozens of talks and discussions centered on the theme, "Get Ready for the Revolution in Fab Productivity!" These interactions will provide:

  • Exclusive data on maximizing fab productivity
  • Familiarity with cutting-edge statistical tools for improving manufacturing effectiveness and slashing costs
  • Look-aheads at future manufacturing challenges, including fully automated fabs, and the paths to 100 percent die yield and theoretical cycle time
  • Reviews of "green fab" designs from expert case studies, and tips on meeting future-fab design requirements
  • Trends in sustaining improvements in IC productivity and profitability, outlined by a panel of industry experts that will include Sam Angelos, Hewlett-Packard; Dan Hutcheson, VLSI Research; Robert Leachman, UC Berkeley; Stuart McIntosh, ASML; Devadas Pillai, Intel; Louis Steen, Tokyo Electron America; and John Schmitz and Randy Goodall, ISMI. (A media briefing and question/answer session with the expert panelists will conclude the symposium's second full day on Oct. 27.)

Industry professionals who are interested in attending the symposium should contact Mike Schwartz or Phil Naughton, Symposium co-chairs, at ismi.symposium@sematech.org. Reporters and editors wishing to cover the meeting are invited to contact Dan McGowan at 512-356-3440 or media.relations@sematech.org