Facing technological uncertainty: Creating, maintaining and disrupting
institutional multiplicity in the semiconductor industry
Abstract. We study how actors in an organizational field collectively create, maintain, and
eventually disrupt institutional multiplicity over time in an attempt to face uncertainty about
the future. Based on longitudinal field work in the semiconductor industry, we find that field
actors strategically manage institutional multiplicity in the form of proto-institutions
representing different technological paradigms to reduce or induce uncertainty about
technological options. We elaborate on how institutional multiplicity is managed, i.e. created,
maintained, but also disrupted, in an organizational field over time and discuss the role of
conferences as field configuring events in facilitating such institutional work.
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INTRODUCTION
In today’s business environment, organizing takes place in organizational fields in flux
(Meyer, Gaba, & Colwell, 2005) and organization theorists have become interested in the
embedded practices of organizing, i.e. the work routinely done by actors to achieve
coordination across organizations. In the institutional literature, this perspective has
manifested itself in the concept of institutional work, developed to understand the purposive
action of individuals and organizations aimed at creating, maintaining and disrupting
institutions (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006: 215). What needs to be elaborated in this
literature is the question of how institutions are created, maintained, and disrupted in fields
in flux and under conditions of high uncertainty about the future. Zietsma and McKnight
(2009) examine such a context and draw on the concept of competing proto-institutions
(Lawrence, Hardy, & Phillips, 2002) that are co-created and maintained collaboratively in a
field until one winning institution diffuses. Building on these insights, we aim to explore in
more detail how such collaborative institutional work is coordinated in a competitive field
over time.
One potentially fruitful, yet unexplored avenue in this context might be the role of field
configuring events (FCEs) as sites to collectively make sense of and shape the development
of institutional, organizational, or technological fields (Meyer et al., 2005). The link
between organized events and institutional work has not yet fully been explored, because
the few existing studies have focused mainly on discursive work resulting in the creation
(Hardy & Maguire, 2010) and maintenance of institutions (Zilber, 2011), but have not
explored how events may simultaneously be used to create, maintain, and disrupt protoinstitutions in a field over time. We therefore formulate the following explorative research
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question (Eisenhardt, 1989a; Langley, 1999): how is institutional multiplicity created,
maintained and disrupted in an organizational field facing uncertainty through ongoing
institutional work at field configuring events?
We answer this question based upon an in-depth case study in the field of semiconductor
manufacturing, a high-velocity environment (Eisenhardt, 1989b) where field actors
collectively try to coordinate the transition from one technological paradigm to a new,
albeit yet still unknown scenario. As the end of Moore’s Law – conventional scaling
techniques that imply a constant miniaturization of semiconductor devices – is foreseeable,
industry actors need to both invest in the established technological paradigm (Dosi, 1982)
following Moore’s law (called Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS)
technologies) and identify an unknown future technological paradigm that replaces the
existing path (labeled Beyond CMOS). This situation is complicated by a paradigm that
strives to deviate from CMOS while at the same time making use of it: More than Moore
(MtM), geared towards introducing new functionalities to existing semiconductor products
to prolong the lifetime of CMOS.
We hence find a situation of technological uncertainty in which it is critical for field
actors to mutually monitor and coordinate their activities in a nonetheless highly
competitive environment. This is facilitated through hosting and taking part in conferences
where actors inform each other about the latest technological advancements and develop
roadmaps to structure future technological objectives. Our study contributes to current
research within the realm of institutional theory in that we elaborate on the practice of
creating, maintaining, and disrupting institutional multiplicity as a form of collective
institutional work needed in fields in flux. We hereby bring the emerging discourse on
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FCEs events closer to the institutional literature, elucidating how engaging in organized
events enables coordinating institutional work in a competitive environment.
The paper is structured as follows. We start by reviewing institutional work and
institutional multiplicity in the context of the broader neo-institutionalist literature and
introduce FCEs as sites of institutional work. We then introduce the field of semiconductor
manufacturing as a theoretically relevant empirical setting and discuss how our in-depth
case study approach fits the exploratory objective of this article. In our findings we
highlight the role of the ITRS (International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors)
conference series for creating, maintaining, and disrupting technological paradigms over
time. We finally discuss the practice of creating, maintaining, and disrupting multiple protoinstitutions as a form of institutional work coordinated through events.
INSTITUTIONAL WORK AND FIELD CONFIGURING EVENTS
Institutional Work and Multiplicity
A central interest of scholars working under the umbrella of neo-institutionalist theory is
to explore the way organizations evolve in their respective environments. Whereas earlier
research has studied why and how organizations strive for legitimacy by conforming to
institutional demands (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Meyer & Rowan, 1991, 1977), more
recent research is interested in how actors actively shape institutions. As a result, the idea of
institutional entrepreneurship has gained popularity, describing actors who leverage
resources to change institutions according to their interests (Battilana, 2006; Garud, Jain, &
Kumaraswamy, 2002; Maguire, Hardy, & Lawrence, 2004). Such agency is particularly
likely in emerging or declining fields (Fligstein, 1997; Hensmans, 2003), in fields where the
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dominant institution is threatened or disrupted (Beckert, 1999), or when dominant players
exercise power in mature fields (Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006; Suddaby & Greenwood,
2005).
In other field contexts, the notion of institutional entrepreneurship has been criticized for
its overemphasis of agency, so that the concept of institutional work, first introduced by
DiMaggio (1988), was elaborated as a middle ground between the predominantly passive
notion of reactive organizations in elder neo-institutional accounts and the heroic “modern
princes” (Levy & Scully, 2007) of institutional entrepreneurship. The focus of institutional
work is on the everyday, effortful practices of individuals and groups who reproduce their
roles, rites, and rituals at the same time that they challenge, modify, and disrupt them
(Lawrence, Suddaby, & Leca, 2011). Institutional work is a practice perspective and as such
focused on “dynamics, relations, and enactment”, which makes it well suited to understand
“novel, indeterminate, and emergent phenomena” (Feldman & Orlikowski, in print).
While the notion of institutional creation has received most attention so far, recent
research under the institutional work framework (see especially in Lawrence, Suddaby, &
Leca, 2009) has highlighted that, especially in disrupted or uncertain fields, the work of
creating, maintaining, and disrupting institutions is interrelated (cf. already Beckert, 1999).
Both Hirsch and Bermiss (2009) and Zietsma and McKnight (2009) argue that institutional
creation goes hand in hand with the discrediting of alternative options. In contrast,
Jarzabkowski, Matthiesen, and Van de Ven (2009) no longer see the existence of multiple
institutions in a field as a transitory state that is eventually resolved by a reconciliation or
suppression of interests, but study how they co-exist and are reenacted in the everyday work
of organizations. Drawing on longitudinal research on a utility company, they find that acts
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of institutional maintenance are relative to the maintenance work of others and that
maintenance also involves acts of creation and disruption. Institutional creation may, for
instance, be a political act to induce contradictory logics that help to further own interests.
While they identify some organizational governance mechanisms such as hierarchical
intervention or arbitration to cope with institutional pluralism, they also point out that this is
an area for future research related to different empirical settings.
Institutional multiplicity or pluralism in general has thus mainly been studied as a source
of change (e.g. Seo & Creed, 2002) or as something that needs to be coped with
(Jarzabkowski et al., 2009), but less as a state that is intentionally created to face
uncertainty. Furthermore, an inter-organizational perspective is often missing in accounts of
how multiple institutions are created, maintained, and disrupted. In this regard, we propose
to study FCEs as sites where the institutional work of field actors is coordinated, especially
in opportunity hazy fields “defined by problems too many-sided and complex for any one
single individual or organization to handle” (Dorado, 2005: 386).
Field Configuring Events: Sites for Coordinating Institutional Work
In their review of researching fields in flux, Meyer et al. (2005: 467) dubbed the term
field configuring events to describe “settings where people from diverse social
organizations assemble temporarily, with the conscious, collective intent to construct an
organizational field.” Drawing on a study of nanobusiness conferences, they argue that:
“Institutional entrepreneurs compete for turf, members, meaning, and media attention,
while collaborating in promoting societal legitimacy for nanotechnology and financial
support for its commercialization.” FCEs thus constitute sites for observing institutional
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work ‘at work’. These events concentrate field actors in a condensed locale, allow for
spontaneous interactions outside the normal routines of business relations (Lampel &
Meyer, 2008), and facilitate processes of sensemaking (Oliver & Montgomery, 2008),
contestation (McInerney, 2008), or standard definition (Garud, 2008).
Hardy and Maguire (2010), one of the few authors so far that explicitly link institutional
work to FCEs, study a series of international policy conference as sites for the production of
narratives that results in a new global regulation. Zilber (2011) studies the work of
maintaining institutional multiplicity through the presentation of competing storylines at
two high-tech conferences in Israel. The link between institutional work and FCEs can be
further developed along several dimensions. In many fields, attending or, at least,
monitoring regular events are part of the routine practices of field actors, some of which
may be practices of institutional work. At events, actors may strategically propagate their
accounts while challenging those of competing actors (McInerney, 2008). Events may also
provide spaces for the ritualistic enactment and thereby the maintenance of norms and
practices (Dacin, Munir, & Tracey, 2010). New institutions such as classification systems
(Anand & Jones, 2008) may be created, whilst others are dismantled. Actors at FCEs can
thus not only identify complex social problems, they can also create collaborative
arrangements that may lead to the solution of these problems (Dorado, 2005).
Drawing on longitudinal empirical research in the semiconductor industry, we now aim
to explore in more detail how different forms of institutional work may interact or take
place in parallel at multiple events in a given field and how these forms co-evolve over
time.
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RESEARCH SETTING
The semiconductor industry was selected as the setting of this study as it is characterized
by high technological uncertainty. Actors from different societal spheres (business, science
and government) orient their activities towards each other in developing CMOS, Beyond
CMOS and MtM-related technological options. They not only conduct joint research and
development to reduce technological uncertainty (Browning & Shetler, 2000), but also
collaborate strategically in the form of the ITRS organization. The International
Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors represents both a written document displaying
future technological standards and an inter-organizational network of the same name. The
ITRS is commonly considered to be the most important roadmap of the semiconductor
industry (Schaller, 2004). Participation in the ITRS network is voluntary and allowed by
invitation. Interested organizations need to have a consistent commitment to the industry,
which needs to be acknowledged by the respective Technical Working Groups (TWGs).
Industry actors consistently refer to the ITRS as the most important guideline in the
industry, formed at the beginning on a national level (US), and since 1999 on a global level.
The ITRS is accompanied by an event series. Since their inception in the mid 1990s, global
ITRS meetings have taken place three times a year and are used by companies trying to
implement their favored technological option in an attempt to dominate the industry. Figure
1 offers an overview of the three technological paradigms and their development over time.
---------------------------------Insert Figure 1 about here
----------------------------------Dosi (1982: 148) defines technological paradigms as a set of procedures, a definition of
the ‘relevant’ problems and of the specific knowledge related to their solution. Each
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technological paradigm also defines its own concept of progress based on its specific
technological and economic trade-offs. As such, technological paradigms do not only coevolve with other economic and institutional factors that lead to their selection and
establishment, but themselves constitute a set of regulative, normative, and cognitive rules
that guide the behaviour of organizations in an organizational field (Geels, 2004). Based on
these considerations, we define the dominant technological paradigm in a field as an
institution, and consider any activities directed towards the maintenance or disruption of an
existing (here: CMOS) or the creation of new paradigms (here: Beyond CMOS and MtM)
as instances of institutional work. We thus consider our field setting an adequate case to
study competing institutional work projects, mediated and coordinated through FCEs, in an
organizational field over time.
METHODS
Since we attempt to offer an explorative account of how events facilitate the
coordination of purposive actions of individual and collective actors in a field, we adopt an
interpretative research methodology (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) that allows us to capture
instances of institutional work over time. Qualitative research generally allows the
exploration of dynamics across different levels of analysis (Bansal & Corley, 2011). In our
case, this is relevant as we aim to connect the coordinated activities of individual
organizational actors with macro-level institutional developments. We engage in
exploratory theory building and differentiation (Eisenhardt, 1989a) and follow a logic of
abduction typical for qualitative research where “data is inextricably fused with theory”
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(Alvesson & Kärreman, 2007: 1265), rather than a strict deductive or an inductive logic
(Locke, Golden-Biddle, & Feldman, 2008; Van Maanen, Sorensen, & Mitchell, 2007).
Throughout this study, we have sought to benefit from the methodological advantages of
studying FCEs highlighted by Lampel and Meyer (2008: 1030-1031) who argue that the
study of such events offers an opportunity for researching dynamic processes that are
difficult to capture with conventional methodologies, allows to access rich and varied data,
and enables researchers to track field evolution. Such a methodology is appropriate for
exploring a phenomenon that is understudied and dynamic by nature. A longitudinal case
study approach was chosen, as this allows us to generate novel insights on how different
forms of institutional work evolve and interrelate over time in creating, maintaining, and
disrupting institutional multiplicity (Yin, 2009).
Data Sources and Data Collection
We primarily revert to two projects (one lasted from 2004 to 2010 and another one
started in 2010, lasting for three years) that have looked into the way complex system
technologies are developed in the semiconductor industry in search of a novel
manufacturing technology, the so-called next generation lithography. Apart from initial data
collection from secondary sources (e.g. scholarly and non-scholarly publications) four main
sources (see Table 1) were utilized for triangulation purposes in order to heighten construct
validity and to prevent post hoc rationalization and potential biases (Lincoln & Guba,
1985).
10
--------------------------------Insert Table 1 about here
--------------------------------First, we analyzed a broad range of field documents. Among them were online materials
(e.g. publicly available brochures, company periodicals, video footage of the organizations
involved), archival data reproduced via databases (e.g. LexisNexis) and other documents
issued by semiconductor industry actors (e.g. annual reports). Such data as a form of
secondary data allow a reconstruction of how the field of semiconductor manufacturing
evolved over time on different levels of analysis, for instance, the organizational (e.g. Intel
corporation), network (e.g. SEMATECH, the globally leading manufacturing consortium),
and field levels of analysis (Barley & Tolbert, 1997).
Second, to date 135 semi-structured interviews have been conducted with semiconductor
industry experts as well as with senior executives (among them were representatives from
SEMATECH (44), suppliers (40), chip manufacturers (25) and other consortia (9), as well
as senior civil servants, research laboratories and consultants (17)). At first, we identified
interviewees by ‘snowball sampling’ and initial contact partners were asked to identify
other potential respondents involved in coordinating field-wide activities. This process
converged into a set of key respondents we contacted and interviewed. The interviews were
conducted during on-site visits or by telephone, and recorded and transcribed verbatim for
subsequent analyses. Except for seven, all interviews were conducted by at least two
members of the research team, allowing us to benefit from more adequate information
gathering and recalling after the interview took place. Each interview (on average: 60-90
minutes) was based on an interview guideline supplemented by follow-up and clarifying
questions. The interviews addressed the professional background of the respondents, the
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way the field of semiconductor manufacturing evolved over time, as well as the key actors
and central activities that serve to coordinate the field.
Third, we draw extensively upon material from participant observations from workshops
and conferences, in the latter case both from participating at conferences (by members of
the research project in 2001, 2005, 2009-2011) and by analyzing archival data like
conference presentations, slides and public announcements around these meetings. This is
in line with previous research on FCEs that assumes that conducting field research, e.g. by
means of attending public conferences, serves to strengthen the validity of our claims by
formal and informal conversations and data gathering (e.g. rosters listings, conference
slides) in the course of such venues. We were able to conduct 15 impromptu interviews in
this way that lasted between 5-60 minutes and were not transcribed (e.g. during coffee
breaks or conference dinners, where we were able to obtain information, among others,
from different CEOs and Vice Presidents of the key organizations from the field). In order
to capture most of the impressions adequately, detailed notes were taken within 24 hours
after the visit and results were discussed with members of the project (Yin, 2009). These
notes took the form of direct and indirect quotations, a summary of the discussed topics,
and our own observations.
Fourth, an annual panel was used between 2007 and 2010. Five experts from the
organizational field whose organizations participate in the ITRS were interviewed each year
with the help of an interview guideline that contained by and large the same content as that
of the semi-structured interviews.
Finally, we engaged in follow-up interviews and e-mail correspondence with key
respondents, as well as in discussions with five U.S. and three European scholars from the
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field of strategic management and organizational sociology as a form of member validation
(Seale, 1999). In this context, we also benefited from a 110-minutes-discussion of the
content of our study with three ITRS board members in August 2011. This, together with
our prolonged engagement in the field, prevents us from fundamental misinterpretations of
our data.
Data Analysis
Although our data analysis did not occur in a linear fashion, it can be divided roughly
into the three stages. In the first stage we collected all data in a case study database to
heighten reliability (Yin, 2009). The analysis is based upon the ‘raw data’ of 150 pages of
field notes, 1,493 pages of interview transcripts, and roughly triple the amount of archival
material (including media coverage, both online and trade periodicals via the LexisNexis
database) and conference data (e.g. ITRS editions and updates or conference presentation
slides). Written comments and reports were compiled to gain information about the diverse
organizations involved and the practices pursued in the field to coordinate technological
standards.
Stage two consisted of writing up condensed descriptions of how the different
organizations interact within the field of semiconductor manufacturing, particularly at the
ITRS meetings. The resulting thick descriptions were discussed by the research team and it
sensitized us to the way in which institutional work unfolds in the course of events.
In stage three we condensed our empirical data. For this purpose we converted all ‘raw
data’ for a combined analysis in atlas.ti, a software tool for analyzing qualitative data.
Figure 2 depicts the data structure. We started coding our data with the analytical lens of
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institutional work, so that we looked for incidents of institutional creation, maintenance and
disruption. We remained open to the multifaceted ways of pursuing these activities, i.e. an
inductive approach was chosen with regard to labeling first-order order categories
concerning the way activities in the run-up, course of, or follow-up of these venues served
as institutional work. We tried to construct mutually exclusive second-order themes and
grouped them hierarchically, which led to the collapse of first-order categories into secondorder themes that represent more abstract and researcher-induced interpretations. For
instance, we collected information about conferences serving as venues to ‘watch out for
homogeneity’ among interpretations and were told that surveys at the end of conferences
serve to achieve consensus about which technological challenges are most critical, which
we then summed up as pursuing a joint understanding or collective sense-making of where
the industry is, or is supposed to be heading. Thereafter, the second-order themes were
subsumed under the two third-order themes, which constitute the core of our conception of
institutional work by means of events conceived as the overarching concept.
---------------------------------Insert Figure 2 about here
----------------------------------For construct validity purposes, the analytical themes were reviewed by key informants
in the course of re-entering the field parallel to the three stages. By means of conducting
focused interviews, ambiguities in our comprehension of institutional work in the form of
participating and hosting conferences and workshops were resolved. Despite our efforts to
conduct this research as rigorously as possible, we are fully aware that we reduce the
complex reality to what seems inter-subjectively consistent for our interviewees and for us.
Table 2 shows examples from different sources, from which we identified and verified the
14
emerging themes of how institutional work against the background of events unfolds. It is
worth noting that only those perspectives were integrated that were shared by interviewees
with differing types of occupation and hierarchical levels in order to strengthen the internal
validity of our claims.
---------------------------------Insert Table 2 about here
-----------------------------------
FINDINGS
The Role of ITRS Events in Creating, Maintaining, and Disrupting Institutional
Multiplicity
Ever since the introduction of an industry-wide roadmap, which originated with the socalled National Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (NTRS) in 1992 for U.S. field
members, meetings have been a permanent feature of the ITRS network to (re)produce an
orientation for the field via roadmapping. After three editions (1992, 1994 and 1997), the
base of participants was broadened and subsequently the NTRS was reformulated in 1999
by additional members from Europe and South East Asia, thereby leading to the ITRS as an
international organization and global coordination tool. The ITRS as a written document
has since then been published on a yearly basis, in even-numbered years as an update and in
odd-numbered years as a full revision. Since 1999, the ITRS network has the following
target:
The overall objective of the ITRS is to present industry-wide consensus on the ’best
current estimate’ of the industry’s research and development needs out to a 15-year
horizon [I]t provides a guide to the efforts of companies, universities, governments,
and other[s] […] The ITRS has improved the quality of R&D investment decisions
15
[…] and has helped to channel research efforts to areas that most need research
breakthroughs (ITRS, 2010b: 1)
The ITRS is by and large coordinated through conferences and workshops where
representatives from the organizations in the field, reciprocally perceived as being relevant,
meet and make sense collectively of ongoing developments:
The ITRS technology working groups (TWGs) meet several times each year to work
on the Roadmap together. Each regional working group holds many routine meetings
throughout the year. These regional teams select representatives to attend our large
international workshops three times a year. During these workshops […] members
share their working meeting results with the other regional representatives, and decide
how to best update the ITRS. (ITRS, 2011)
The most important meetings are the three annual conferences (‘large international
workshops’), where members of all ITRS branches – the so called Technology Working
Groups (TWGs) – convene. There is a fixed schedule for these workshops: in spring the
meeting takes place in Europe (in alternating locations), in summer in the U.S.A. (always in
San Francisco, because it is co-located with another field-wide conference) and in winter in
South-East Asia (in alternating locations). While competing technological paradigms are
debated and pursued decentrally by different actors in the field throughout the year, the
ITRS meetings are the central site where they are debated collectively, so that organizations
can both obtain an overview (I-1; I-60) and advocate their favored technological options.
Although it is publicly announced in this way, the ITRS meetings are by no means driven
by consensus. Instead, they represent a highly political process, the outcome of which is
considered to describe the allegedly objective potential of the discussed technological
alternatives. For instance, the internal circulation of information at these venues is heavily
imbued with strategic intentions, since the actors issuing the information try to rally support
for a specific technological options. Information is also strategically manipulated for
16
external parties relevant to the respective technological option. Respondents furthermore
pointed out that apart from one exception, all TWG chairs are representatives of U.S.
organizations. To have checks and balances, each TWG is governed by a triumvirate: the
chair, one representative from a South East Asian organization, and one from a European
firm.
Through our attendance at different ITRS meetings, we observed that critical decisions
were made even in the run-up to the meetings. Announcements or the absence of expected
announcements, e.g., are interpreted as an important indication of the (potential) viability or
abandonment of a technological option or its (preliminary) malfunctioning, which is likely
to lead to a significant withdrawal of financial resources concerning collaborative and
single organizations’ R&D efforts. This observation is often manifested in press releases
before, but also during and after the respective meetings. As one Intel representative
commented on an announcement by his company, a leading firm in the field:
The […] press release was simply devastating [...] devastating as it comes from a
player like Intel [...] press releases are [...] a political medium in order to influence or
foster certain developments that each actor interprets as beneficial for him [...] I
would consider press releases as an opportunistic instrument (I-21)
Moreover, the number of scientific contributions or presentations relating to a specific
technology in general is indicative of that technology’s likelihood to succeed in the future.
As one respondent explained regarding EUV, currently the most likely front-runner for
CMOS-related technologies in the foreseeable future:
If you take a look at the papers for each area [i.e. technologies related to CMOS] you
get a rough estimate about the amount of activities related to the different areas. In the
last three years […] almost everything went into EUV while X-ray, electron beam
lithography and ion beam lithography were all reduced to almost zero; that is, you
simply need to take a look at the number of contributions and the parallel activities to
realize that EUV is hotly debated (I-84)
17
Especially the summaries and final statements issued at conferences are regarded as a
reliable source to assess future possibilities in the field. They are used as guidelines for
future activities and reduce the variety of potential technological options and their
parameters.
Institutional Multiplicity as Friend and Foe
Based on a systematic analysis of the entire set of presentations from the ITRS meetings
since 1999 (Figure 3), we sketch the development of multiple technological paradigms in
this field and their accompanying TWGs over time. In the first meetings, only the CMOS
paradigm was debated, which is why we focus our analysis upon the time when Beyond
CMOS and MtM gained attention and multiplicity increased in 1999 (MtM) and 2008
(Beyond CMOS). It is important to note that there is a time lag between the time in which
Beyond CMOS and MtM were subject to discussion at ITRS events and the time the
according TWGs were introduced at ITRS meetings. The novel paradigms first needed to
be discussed and jointly approved by the ITRS members as relevant before they were
officially recognized and manifested in the form of TWGs. For instance, the Emerging
Research Materials TWG under Beyond CMOS was introduced in 2003 as an offspring
from the Process Integration, Devices & Structures TWG from the CMOS paradigm as the
technological specifications started to diverge too drastically across technological
paradigms.
-----------------------------------Insert Figure 3 about here
-------------------------------------
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While CMOS can be considered as an attempt of field actors to reduce technological
uncertainty by reducing institutional multiplicity, efforts in the MtM and Beyond CMOS
arenas are intended to induce technological uncertainty, thereby creating institutional
multiplicity. These are just overarching tendencies, however. Focusing upon each
technological paradigm in detail reveals that each paradigm constitutes itself a microcosm
on its own where multiplicity is created, maintained and disrupted.
Reducing technological uncertainty concerning CMOS. Throughout its evolution, the
ITRS has been geared towards Moore’s law by using CMOS-related technologies. What is
now called a ‘law’ started in 1965 with the prediction made in a scientific journal by
Gordon Moore that the number of transistors that can be positioned on an integrated circuit
is going to double every 18 months (Moore, 1996). Ever since, industry actors have
reverted to this ‘law’, ascribing significance and legitimacy to it and allocating resources to
achieving it in their business practice. Most of the TWGs deal with technological options
related to the maintenance of Moore’s law, which creates the need to reduce the
technological options available for scaling to maintain Moore’s law. Take, e.g., the TWG
on Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography (EUV), a specific technological option within the
CMOS paradigm. In this TWG, the actors discuss existing and future technological
milestones and “showstoppers”, i.e. technological hurdles that might in effect terminate
EUV’s viability at a future point in time.
Figure 3 illustrates that while some working groups emerged over time within CMOS,
others ceased to exist, depending upon the relevance and viability of the technological
options. For instance, the TWG on Defect Reduction (geared towards reducing errors when
manufacturing semiconductors) terminated its operations in 2001, while most members
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redefined their scope of activities and reinstalled this TWG later on as Yield Enhancement
TWG, which became broader in scope, including defect detections and sources not only
defect reduction. The changes were legitimated by a field-wide venue in 2001
(http://www.sematech.org/meetings/archives/litho/ngl/20010829/), where actors needed to
find a consensus about the technological options they considered most successful within the
CMOS paradigm. The reason for this forced consensus was that the field as such could not
afford to pursue multiple CMOS options, so they aimed to transform genuine uncertainty
into risks by defining (allegedly) measurable objectives to reduce technological options.
EUV turned out as the consensus and was described as the desperately needed ”gamechanging technology” (SEMATECH Tech Report 2011, 6) the entire field sought for.
Inducing technological uncertainty concerning MtM and Beyond CMOS. Besides
debating the creation, maintenance, and disruption of options within the CMOS-paradigm,
we were able to witness the introduction of MtM- and Beyond CMOS-related TWGs. These
TWGs were introduced to discuss the viability of future technological options. This process
is highly imbued with uncertainty as not only the technological options are (even) less well
understood when compared with the CMOS paradigm, but it remains entirely unclear with
which actors (not) to collaborate in the future, as actors from within the existing field of
semiconductor manufacturing are convinced that they will not be able to adequately face
the challenges of MtM and Beyond CMOS. Due to the unclear technological and actorrelated landscapes, activities geared towards MtM and Beyond CMOS constructively
induce uncertainty in the field.
As for the Beyond CMOS technological paradigm, we observed the introduction of
TWGs devoted to Emerging Research Materials in 2003 as well as Emerging Research
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Devices in 2004. This was the result of a collective agreement about the need to invest into
these new areas as a way to face the uncertainty about alternative technological paths once
the CMOS-paradigm terminates. Thus, previously untapped technological areas started to
become potentially relevant, e.g. nanoelectronic or biotechnology-oriented companies.
MtM-related technologies concern a recent paradigm related to the non-digital
functionality of semiconductor products and represent – as opposed to CMOS and Beyond
CMOS – not a global, but a predominantly European effort, as European chip
manufacturers fear they are not able to compete on a cost basis against South East Asian
producers. This paradigm focuses on creating high-value micro- and nanoelectronic systems
to introduce new technological possibilities and potential applications of existing CMOSrelated technologies through technological diversification. In effect, since the early 2000s
the European representatives attempt to gather support for MtM at ITRS meetings. Their
aim is to achieve a competitive advantage by focusing upon knowledge-intensive
diversification processes, as the following quote by a European chip manufacturer
representative illustrates:
I think More-than-Moore is currently still a dynamic field […] that we as Europeans
[i.e. European semiconductor manufacturers] currently perceive to be a chance […]
where we still see a competitive edge and an area for growth […] The Europeans are
not the strongest anymore when it comes to [CMOS-related, conventional]
manufacturing technologies […] but we can instead compete with our systems knowhow and product competence. Those are exactly the kinds of fields in which Morethan-Moore applications become relevant […] That’s the reason why the Europeans
have started this initiative within the ITRS (I-109; our translation)
As another European chip manufacturer representative explains, the MtM initiative
intentionally plans to develop several roadmaps alongside the existing CMOS- and Beyond
CMOS-related ones:
21
We are not in the same situation with MtM because it is much more entangled
technologies and applications, so [the key question is] how is it still possible to
develop roadmaps – with an ’s’ – because there will be many of them (I-129)
For the ailing European semiconductor companies, the introduction of more than one
roadmap, and thus the creation of institutional multiplicity and technological uncertainty, is
considered inevitable. The reason is that they are only able to offer attractive technological
solutions to other organizational fields such as the automotive industry and health care if
these are tailor-made. This is, however, not possible if they subsume their roadmapping
efforts under the existing single roadmap format of the ITRS, which is why they argue that
different roadmaps – for the various organizational fields like automotive or health care –
are needed (I-122; I-126). Thus, opening up to other fields – and thereby altering not only
existing technological applications, but also refining the existing roadmapping practice, is a
survival strategy for at least the European part of the semiconductor manufacturing field.
Observations from an Exemplary Meeting
After this macro-perspective of field developments and the role of ITRS events, we
now turn to a more micro-level analysis of institutional work regarding different
technological paths at an ITRS meeting. We have chosen to report from our participation at
the ITRS spring meeting in April 2011 in Potsdam/Germany, because all three
technological paradigms, CMOS, MtM and Beyond CMOS, were represented by different
TWGs at this time and actors attempt to reduce and/or induce technological uncertainty in
the field by promoting the viability of their favored technological paradigm. This meeting,
like all ITRS meetings since 1999, consisted in effect of various interconnected meetings,
reflecting the competing technological paradigms. The meeting per se lasted two days, but
22
in the run-up TWGs devoted to Beyond CMOS-related themes and energy issues met for
one day and subsequent to the meeting a one-day workshop was geared towards MtM.
Generally, ITRS meetings are predominantly geared towards CMOS themes. Evidence
for this is that most attendees (based upon our analysis of the list of attendees) and TWGs
are geared towards CMOS, because pursuing Moore’s law in the form of miniaturizing
current semiconductor devices is currently a pressing need. Nonetheless and as shown in
Figure 3, even CMOS-related representatives acknowledge that Beyond CMOS and MtM
will become increasingly relevant. This is based upon the presumption that CMOS will be
terminated over time and future landscapes need to be envisioned for all technological
paradigms not only in parallel, but also reflecting upon interconnections across
technological paradigms. Therefore various TWGs also met for “Technology Pacing”sessions, trying to establish links across CMOS-related TWGs. In addition, the CMOSrelated representatives and initiators of the Technology Pacing sessions also partially
extended their invitation to TWGs from another technological paradigm, Beyond CMOS.
What is more, several CMOS-related TWGs assembled during some of the sessions at the
Lithography TWG (geared towards EUV), as EUV represents the most pressing
technological option to be pursued and an alignment across TWGs is needed.
Therefore the currently most likely technological front-runner, EUV, was discussed
intensively during this meeting. One respondent aired in this regard that “EUV is top
priority” (I-134), underscoring the need to reduce technological uncertainty concerning this
technological paradigm as time demands are pressing and scaling efforts need to be
improved to maintain existing business models. Concerning the Beyond CMOS paradigm,
the aforementioned pre-meeting was arranged where representatives of organizations
23
primarily involved with this technological paradigm met to exchange ideas on how to
proceed, because “scaling doesn’t work anymore”, as the Chairman of the ITRS put it when
asked during the meeting. What is to date most challenging is the question of how to
address novel collaboration partners and no strategy for this currently exists, be it for
Beyond CMOS or MtM. This stems from the inability to assess at this point in time which
technological option(s) will become relevant around 2020-2025 to guide the industry into
the Beyond CMOS era, as “we have many [technological] candidates for beyond CMOS
devices, but we don't have real candidate that has risen above the group to be the real active
structure” (I-127).
Activities geared towards MtM need to be assessed against the backdrop of constant
lobbying efforts by the European semiconductor manufacturers. The European
representatives tried to push this technological paradigm via a number of different
activities. On the one hand they formulated a white paper (Arden, Brillouët, Cogez, Graef,
Huizing, & Mahnkopf, 2010) that they repeatedly – and not least at the ITRS meeting in
Potsdam – lobbied for. On the other hand, they engaged in other formal (e.g. conducting
speeches at the ITRS meetings) or informal (e.g. hallway conversations during the ITRS
meetings) ways of supporting their interests. At the Potsdam venue, a separate workshop
took place subsequent to the end of the ITRS meeting for one day. Here the proponents met
face-to-face to discuss how to further promote MtM. One important strategy in this regard
is the introduction of new TWGs to the ITRS. In Potsdam, the TWG of Micro-ElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) was introduced. As the head of the TWG reports:
I am starting the roadmapping for the MEMS technology working group at ITRS […]
So I am establishing a new working group […] So my committee, MEMS, is one
component of ‘More than Moore’. Up until today this has been a pilot program. The
24
ITRS has decided ‘Let's look at this, let's see how it starts’ and then today we'll make
a decision about whether we will accept this committee as a permanent committee. So
today is a big day for the MEMS (I-126)
As it is typical for ITRS activities, micropolitics played a critical role in the run-up. This
manifests in the observation that U.S. organizations and their representatives still dominate
the ITRS by the number of attendees and influential positions within the ITRS (e.g. TWG
chairs), even when it comes to MtM as a European-oriented theme (I-133).
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
Managing Institutional Multiplicity to Face Technological Uncertainty
Most of the literature dealing with institutional multiplicity has addressed questions
about why and how institutions change and how actors actively engage with institutions.
For instance, inconsistencies in institutional logics are said to leave actors within an
institutional field a choice (Borum & Westenholz, 1995; Seo & Creed, 2002); individual or
organizational actors are often embedded in and connected across multiple fields, so that
resources and ideas flow across these fields and open avenues for institutional change
(Lounsbury & Pollack, 2001); and the existence of competing logics in a field based on
diverging interests and belief systems opens up avenues for transformation and resistance
(e.g. Friedland & Alford, 1991; Marquis & Lounsbury, 2007).
Few of these studies have addressed how institutional multiplicity in a field is
deliberately created and managed collectively by actors in a field trying to make sense of
and cope with uncertainty about the future. In the growing literature on uncertain
environmental regulation, researchers are interested in corporations’ inability to assess the
risks and opportunities of technological investments (Marcus, Aragon-Correa, & Pinkse,
25
2011: 5-6). In the case of genuine uncertainty, i.e. when an option’s likelihood cannot be
estimated in terms of probabilities and actors face “unknown unknowns” (Knight, 1921),
the literature suggests that corporations should strategically engage in activities to actively
shape the future, e.g. by mobilizing other firms or using trade associations to influence
regulators (Marcus et al., 2011). In our case, there is no official regulatory body that could
be influenced through such lobbying activities. Instead, competing field actors themselves
organize, form an inter-organizational network with a quasi-regulatory function (the ITRS),
and aim to shape the future by collectively defining a set of alternative options in the form
of proto-institutions (Lawrence et al., 2002).
Competing industry actors meet and collaborate not only to envision possible future
scenarios, but also to select few of them in agreement to narrow down possible options and
reduce the uncertainty for investment decisions (Schaller, 2004). Some actors in the course
of time then further differentiate to develop alternative paths. These paths are not only
labeled, but also institutionalized in that they are inscribed in roadmaps, represented by
certain actors groups (in the form of TWGs), and tied to resources (e.g. projects geared
towards filling technological gaps identified in the roadmap). Other than in the case of
competing institutional logics where interests and actors groups are divided on different
sides of a struggle (e.g. Hargrave & Van de Ven, 2006) and the main target of institutional
work activities is to diffuse the preferred institution (e.g. Rao, Morrill, & Zald, 2000),
institutional work in our case is directed towards creating institutional multiplicity and
maintaining the coexistence of several proto-institutions through prolonged periods of
uncertainty, while at the same time managing its scope. Figure 4 summarizes our argument
26
about the simultaneous processes of reducing and inducing uncertainty by managing
institutional multiplicity.
-----------------------------------Insert Figure 4 about here
------------------------------------Our longitudinal perspective is particularly interesting in this regard. First, the
semiconductor manufacturing industry developed a roadmap for CMOS. In 2003, this
paradigm was complemented with the Beyond CMOS option within the existing ITRS; in
2008, a different subset of actors within the ITRS – the European manufacturers – promoted
a third paradigm, MtM, that has the potential to deviate not only technologically, but also
concerning how the whole ITRS is operating. Field actors have thus developed a set of
practices for collaborative proto-institution building among competing actors and the
ongoing maintenance of these proto-institutions: defining an overarching technological
paradigm, opening up technological options within this paradigm, assigning actor groups to
it, developing a roadmap to temporally outline a plan for the future, and regularly
convening in a set rhythm to discuss and revise this roadmap. This practice itself has
become diffused in the sense that subsets of field actors have used the same practice over
time to create and maintain alternative proto-institutions. These are not separate from each
other and competing as resources are at least to date spent on them parallel as they coexist,
however, but are (still) coordinated under the same umbrella of the ITRS, at the same
meetings, with overlapping actor groups that, at least in some cases, participate in several of
these paradigms (e.g. at Technology Pacing sessions). The maintenance of institutional
multiplicity itself has thus become a target of institutional work.
27
With respect to existing research on institutional work, our findings empirically illustrate
how practices to create, maintain, and also to disrupt proto-institutions co-exist in an
organizational field (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006). In our examination period, disruption
only occurs within technological paradigms when technological options and accompanying
working groups become dismantled, but it is at least expected by industry actors that the
CMOS paradigm will at some point terminate. Following Zilber (2011), our study combines
micro and macro levels of analysis and demonstrates how institutional multiplicity can be
the outcome of institutional work practices, instead of merely a resource for institutional
work. Interestingly, the extension of institutional multiplicity in the form of technological
paradigms as proto-institutions in our field goes hand in hand with the field’s opening up to
other fields – here: industries such as the biotechnology (Beyond CMOS) and automobile
(MtM) industry. Connections to other fields have been shown as an important factor driving
institutional change (e.g. Lounsbury & Pollack, 2001). Here, conversely, such field
transformation may be an outcome of institutional multiplicity. As our longitudinal
perspective shows, field actors create proto-institutions to be able to approach other fields
with which they would like to establish business connections in the future.
Very few studies to date target an arena where field actors share an interest in
institutional multiplicity as a more than transitory state, at least for a certain period of time
in which uncertainty prevails. Our field setting allows us to distil a set of practices
developed for the creation, maintenance, and eventual disruption of institutional
multiplicity in a collective and coordinated effort. Most existing studies of institutional
creation have tended to focus on either emerging fields (e.g. Maguire et al., 2004) or on
highly institutionalized fields where institutions are replaced in a linear process from de- to
28
re-institutionalization in (e.g. Greenwood, Suddaby, & Hinings, 2002). Dacin, Munir, and
Tracey (2010) also choose a highly institutionalized setting, the British class system, for
their study of institutional maintenance. Zilber (2011) or Jarzabkowski et al. (2009) take
first steps towards understanding institutional work in pluralistic fields. Our study, set in
such a field context, indicates that the creation of institutional multiplicity may be an
important form of institutional work in such contexts.
The Role of Events in Coordinating the Creation, Maintenance, and Disruption of
Institutional Multiplicity
Only few studies to date have explicitly stressed how institutional work may be
facilitated by and take place at FCEs. Zilber (2011) argues that conferences are arenas for
the routine discursive maintenance of institutional multiplicity, as they provide spaces for
different actor groups representing different interests and institutions. She does not provide
a longitudinal perspective, however, and focuses exclusively on discursive institutional
work. Hardy and Maguire (2010: 1358) highlight organized events like conferences or
workshops as "catalysts of change, especially as organizations and governments struggle to
develop global solutions to complex problems". They study a series of UN conferences and
show how these events provide discursive spaces that enable the creation of narratives that
bring about new field-level rules, positions, and understandings. Our empirical study
suggests that in cases of private or transnational regulation and standard setting, where
lobbying towards state actors is not a viable alternative for shaping the future, organizing
events and congregating regularly may be important practices of institutional work to
coordinate the creation, maintenance, and disruption of institutions.
29
FCEs, especially those that are organized regularly, not only open multiple discursive
spaces, but support roadmapping practices (e.g. through the temporal structuring of
activities and decisions), allow networks to form and stabilize at and across different levels
(Kilduff & Tsai, 2003), and align financial resources to be pooled concerning promising
technological options. The different stages of institutionalization processes outlined in
previous research can take place in parallel and overlap at FCEs – a necessary condition for
institutional work in “opportunity hazy” environments (Dorado, 2005) where uncertainty
about the future is high and change is non-linear (Meyer et al., 2005). This implies a shift
away from stage models of institutional change that conceive of life-cycles of creating,
maintaining, and destroying institutions (e.g. Tolbert & Zucker, 1996) towards studying
these processes as ongoing and interrelated. It thereby allows the study of institutional work
in its original sense of the term: as a practice of contemporary organizing that is “complex,
dynamic, distributed, mobile, transient, and unprecedented” (Feldman & Orlikowski, in
print).
Further research could explore how different stages of institutional entrepreneurship or
institutional work, such as pre-institutionalization, theorization, and diffusion (Perkmann &
Spicer, 2007), take place in parallel and support each other over a series of FCEs.
Furthermore, further research could explore in more detail which kinds of fields are likely
to be governed by events, which kinds of outcomes can be expected from such events, and
which kinds of actors are most likely to organize and attend events as they engage in
institutional work. Our own study could be strengthened by including more ethnographical
data and explicit discourses and debates as well as specific actor constellations and how
they change over time. This would help us to theorize in more detail about the role of
30
interactions across proto-institutional projects as a precondition for the coordinated
creation, maintenance, and disruption of institutional multiplicity.
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TABLES AND FIGURES
TABLE 1
Field Documents
Document type
Documents analyzed
NTRS documents
NTRS Editions (1992, 1994, 1997)
ITRS documents
ITRS Editions (biannually since its inception in 1999)
ITRS Updates (biannually since its inception in 1998)
Documents issued by Annual reports and press releases from the websites of relevant companies
organizations
(e.g. Intel and IBM), industry associations (e.g. Semiconductor Industry
Association) and consortia (e.g. SEMATECH)
Hewlett Packard Journal / Digital Technical Journal
IBM Journal of Research and Development
Intel Technology Journal
Media coverage
Online: Compound Semiconductor, Electronic Design News, EE Times,
Semiconductor International, Semiconductor FabTech, Semiconductor
Today, Silicon Strategies, Solid State Technology
Databases for the reproduction of printed documents: LexisNexis (English
language)
Semiconductor
specific outlets
IEEE Transactions on Semiconductor Manufacturing, Journal of
Semiconductor Technology and Science, Journal of Semiconductors,
Materials Science in Semiconductor Processing, Microelectronic Engineering
Conference
Proceedings
1995 – today: Proceedings of SPIE conferences
1997 – today: NGL Workshop papers and presentations
2001 – today: SEMATECH (later with SELETE and EUVA) hosted
International EUVL Symposium papers and presentations
2001 – today: Workshops on EUVL masks, resists and source papers and
presentations
2004 – today: SEMATECH, IMEC and SELETE hosted International
Symposium on Immersion Lithography papers and presentations
2004 – today: SEMATECH hosted Lithography Forum (biannually) papers,
presentations and surveys
37
TABLE 2
Illustrative evidence
Practice
Reducing
technological
uncertainty
Inducing
technological
uncertainty
Data source
Illustrative evidence
Archival data
the industry’s ability to exponentially decrease the minimum feature sizes used to fabricate integrated circuits […] is usually expressed as Moore’s Law […]
All of these improvement trends, sometimes called “scaling” trends, have been enabled by large R&D investments […] the growing size of the required
investments has motivated industry collaboration and spawned many R&D partnerships, consortia, and other cooperative ventures. The International
Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) has been an especially successful worldwide cooperation. […] the Roadmap has been put together in the
spirit of a challenge – essentially, “What technical capabilities need to be developed for the industry to stay on Moore’s Law and the other trends?” (ITRS,
2005, 1)
Field notes
A survey is conducted at the end of the conference to get a consensus of where the industry is (supposed to be) heading to. According to B.R. (himself
director of lithography at SEMATECH and assigned by Intel corporation) the industry needs a “clear mandate” [slide information] and orientation. B.R.
analyzes the survey results himself [...] The results of the survey are presented by B.R. at the end of the dinner [...] his presentation takes about 45
minutes; during the presentation of the survey results, B.R. ‘interprets’ the results sometimes quite obviously in favour of EUV, as a person sitting next to
me amusingly notes (notes taken at the Litho Forum in New York City, 2010-05-11)
Interview data
At present Intel plays the role […] of pushing EUV forward […] and they have said […] 'We will kick 157 [nanometer] from the roadmap' and as a result
resources were released for EUV. You can see that very clearly: The number of contributions and people that are working on EUV is increasing at a steady
pace […] If it succeeds, let's say at the end of 2006, beginning of 2007, then the credibility of EUV will make a major leap and then we will also get the
missing 2 or 3 billion [industry-wide for the development of EUV] (I-16)
Archival data
The industry is now faced with the increasing importance of a new trend, “More than Moore” (MtM), where added value to devices is provided by
incorporating functionalities that do not necessarily scale according to "Moore's Law“. Given the benefits that roadmapping has brought the Semiconductorindustry so far, it is an opportunity for the ITRS community, i.e. the Technology Working Groups and the International Roadmap Committee, to include
significant parts of the “More-than-Moore” domain in its work. Traditionally, the ITRS has taken a “technology push” approach for roadmapping “More
Moore”, assuming the validity of a simple law such as Moore’s law. In the absence of such a law, a different methodology is needed to identify and guide
roadmap efforts in the MtM-domain (Arden et al., 2010, 3)
Field notes
P.C. presents the results for the European MtM initiated TWG. In his presentation he says that “the ITRS has demonstrated the value of roadmapping for
CMOS [nonetheless] MtM roadmapping offers a similar, but more challenging opportunity”. He goes on to argue that, in the case of MtM, it is more difficult
to achieve a “convergence of opinion”, thus, all industry actors need to gather and an industry-wide “involvement of new communities into ITRS” is needed
(notes taken at the ITRS Public Summer Conference in San Francisco, 2010-07-14)
Interview data
The MtM kinds of applications, where you have mixed functions packaged on a system in a chip. That addresses zillion different applications that we can
hardly dream of now (I-127)
38
FIGURE 1
Development of the Three Technological Paradigms
Legend:
EUV= Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography
RF = Radio Frequency
HV = High Voltage
QCA = Quantum Celluar Automata
Carbon-based Nano-electronics
Molecular Devices
QCA
Spin-state transistors
Capacitance-based memory
Beyond CMOS
Resistance-based Memory
Unconventional/Non-standard CMOS
193 nm Optical Lithography & Enhancements
EUV Lithography & Enhancements
CMOS Path:
‘More Moore’
PXL
EPL
PEL
IPL
More than
Moore
Analog/RF
Passives
HV Power
Sensor Actuators
Biochips
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
39
FIGURE 2
Emergent Data Structure
First-order categories
Second-order themes
Third-order themes
Overarching concept
(excerpt from categories;
data derived)
(researcher-induced)
(researcher-induced)
(researcher-induced)
• ITRS as an artefact
• Formulating joint objectives
• Written format / ITRS template
• TWG and accompanying meetings
serve to harmonize orientations
• Exchange of technical details
• Eliminate ‘showstoppers’
• ‘Best current estimate’ of the industry
• Organizing funding
• Following Moore’s law
• Launching selected projects with actors from
other industries
• Organizing ‘round tables’ with participants
from potentially in the future relevant
industries
• Introducing new chapters
• “Pacing technology” sessions
• Thinking about introducing more than one
roadmap for the case of MtM
• Issuing an MtM white paper to gain
momentum
Defining field-wide
objectives
Identifying
technological challenges
Reducing
technological
uncertainty
Forced consensus
Facing technological
uncertainty
Opening up towards
unknown technological
Landscapes and actors
Increasing technological
multiplicity
Inducing
technological
uncertainty
Promoting alternative
roadmapping formats
40
FIGURE 3
ITRS TWGs over Time
FIGURE 4
Facing Technological Uncertainty
41
range of
technological
options
Reducing technological uncertainty
range of
technological
options
Inducing technological uncertainty
t
42