21st Century Innovation Systems for Japan and the United States Lessons from a Decade of Change: Report of a Symposium (2009) / Chapter Skim
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Economic Impacts of International R&D Coordination: SEMATECH and the International Technology Roadmap--Kenneth Flamm
Economic Impacts of International R&D Coordination: SEMATECH and the International Technology Roadmap--Kenneth Flamm
Pages 108-125
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From page 108... ...
This paper describes how these three developments were linked, how changing institutional arrangements used to organize semiconductor R&D shaped technological change, and the economic impacts of innovation in this industry. tHe Pace oF tecHnoloGical cHanGe The acceleration of technological change in semiconductors in the late 1990s is now well appreciated.
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From page 109... ...
Communications," Federal Reserve Finance and Economics Discussion Paper 2002-37, Washington, D.C.: The Federal Reserve Board of Governors, Washington, August 2002; revised 2004, forthcoming in E Berndt, ed., Hard to Measure Goods and Serices -- Essays in Honor of Zi Griliches, Chicago, IL: National Bureau of Economic Research.
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From page 110... ...
government decided to have the Defense Department pay half of the cost of a joint industry consortium -- dubbed SEMATECH (for semiconductor manufacturing technology) and budgeted at $200 million annually.
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From page 111... ...
A report was also published in 1992 detailing the goals for semiconductor manufacturing technology produced by participants at this workshop. SEMATECH continued to provide technological leadership for the roadmap process.
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From page 112... ...
As the new century dawned, two transnational R&D organi zations coexisted within the international semiconductor industry -- SELETE, headquartered in Japan, and International SEMATECH, with headquarters in the United States. The 1997 roadmap became the last "national" technology roadmap, replaced by "International Technology Roadmaps" sponsored and coordinated through these two global R&D consortia and semiconductor industry associations in the United States, Europe, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan.
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From page 113... ...
law passed in the 1980s carved out a specific exception by granting limited antitrust immunity for registered R&D consortia such as SEMATECH. Under this sheltering umbrella, and because the United States tends to be a leader in international antitrust enforcement, the SEMATECH-guided national technology roadmap, and its successor, the ITRS, have flourished.
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From page 114... ...
2004. "The Semiconductor Technology Roadmap." Future Fab International, 18.
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From page 115... ...
m_02.eps flam provided a way of cooperating with foreign materials and equipment suppliers in those areas where "best of breed" manufacturing technology did not reside in the United States. Since the turn of the century, however, it has been increasingly evident that a steadily increasing share of manufacturing and technology development is being undertaken outside the United States by increasingly competent and techno PRePublication coPy
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A rational response to improving competence outside the United States is to gain access to these overseas developments by establishing offshore R&D activities that afford some access to foreign technology. PRePublication coPy
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From page 117... ...
was the pioneer in first creating an international coopera tion mechanism (the roadmap) and later in transforming itself from a national technology initiative into an international consortium, it is no longer the only player in this space.
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From page 118... ...
consortia that have brought new energy and dynamism to the globalization of semiconductor R&D. One model is a national or regional government-subsidized center or lab, in which a number of international semiconductor producers participate in a broad research program.
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From page 119... ...
10Presentation of Anton De Proft, IMEC, at the National Academies Symposium on "Synergies in Regional and National Policies in the Global Economy," Leuven, Belgium, September 2006. 11For discussions of these relationships, see, "IBM & AMD aim alliance at the 22nm frontier," Semiconductor Fabtech, November 1, 2005; "IBM, Sony, Toshiba take technology alliance beyond 32nm," Semiconductor Fabtech, December 1, 2006; "IBM and partners ready 45nm low power process," Semiconductor Fabtech, August 30, 2006; "Governor Pataki Announces Historic Investments by IBM Global High-Tech Leaders In Nanoelectronics Manufacturing And Development," January 6, 2005,Accessed at |
From page 120... ...
Although Flanders founded IMEC in 1984 to jumpstart a Belgian semiconductor manufacturing industry, there is still not a single major semiconductor device or equipment manufacturing plant located anywhere in Belgium. The historical record in creat ing a Belgian semiconductor cluster does not seem particularly strong from a U.S.
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From page 121... ...
Studies by economists measuring semiconductor prices show accelerating declines in quality-adjusted semiconductor prices in the late 1990s for virtually all types of semiconductors after the move to a two-year cycle in 1995.13 Faster semiconductor prices declines, in turn, had large effects on price declines for computer and communications equipment, which in turn had a major impact on aggregate economic growth and productivity improvement in recent years.14 A simple model of semiconductor manufacturing costs can be used to predict how an acceleration of the cycle between new technology nodes from 3 years to 2 years will effect manufacturing costs for a semiconductor component with given functionality.15 Using a model of this sort, we can decompose improvements in semiconductor price-performance into two broad sources of change -- declines in price for given quality (or functionality) flowing from lower manufacturing costs associated with new technology and qualitatively improved capabilities and functionality (performance)
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From page 122... ...
16 My estimate is that roughly half of the decline in quality-adjusted price over this period came from lower manufacturing costs for the transistors in a given chip design, with the other half of quality-adjusted price improvement coming from other sources, including architectural and design innovation.17 Within the half of quality-adjusted price decline attributable to introduction of new technology nodes, perhaps one-sixth to one-third of the improvement is attributable to acceleration in the introduction of new nodes from 3 years to 2 years. While this is significant, it underestimates the total impact of improvement in manufacturing technology, since as argued above, it neglects incidental quality improvements associated with smaller feature sizes not captured in price per transistor.
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From page 123... ...
After a sharp reduction in the rate at which prices were declining over 20032005, the rate of decline in quality-adjusted microprocessor prices rebounded and is currently declining at a rate where most of the price decline can be attrib uted to cost-improvement associated with the introduction of new technology nodes. Thus, in microprocessors, the poster child for rapid improvement in semiconductor price performance over the past decade, the role of the shift from a 3-year to 2-year technology node cycle played a significant but not predominant role in accelerating innovation in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
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From page 124... ...
2006. "Shifting Trends in Semiconductor Prices and the Pace of Technological Progress." Federal Reserve Board Finance and Economics Discussion Series Working Paper No.
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From page 125... ...
2004. "The Semiconductor Technology Roadmap." Future Fab International 18.
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