INDUSTRY NEWS

ON-LINE: SEMI has posted the first standards ballots on its Web site.

Increased response rate expected as SEMI introduces electronic standards balloting

SEMI hopes the recent introduction of electronic standards balloting will increase the response rate, cut paper use, and raise the profile of standards in general. In early May the trade association for the first time posted standards ballots on its Web site for all interested parties to use. The two draft, or blue, documents are concerned with aspects of gas delivery.

"This was the first step leading up to what we're actually trying to do, which is distributing the technical ballot, our formal review process," says Jeff Silveira, a SEMI standards engineer. SEMI subsequently made available the first full technical, or yellow, ballot on its Web site on May 30. This technical ballot is a metrics committee document. The title is SEMI Draft Document 2968, Revision to SEMI E10, Specification for Definition and Measurement of Equipment Reliability, Availability, and Maintainability (RAM).

Because the blue ballots are distributed traditionally for comment only, Silveira says there is less risk in posting them on-line than there is in posting a final voting ballot. "If something goes wrong with the blue ballot, it doesn't harm the process." The metrics document was selected as the first yellow ballot because the SEMI committee developing this standard is one of the smaller ones and offers "a little more of a controlled test," says David Bouldin, the committee leader.

Silveira and others believe electronic balloting offers several benefits. They fully expect that the easier voting method will increase the number of returned ballots and reduce the possibility of inputting errors. "Basically, if we pull this off with the technical ballot, there's less chance of something being eaten by a fax machine," he asserts.

VOTE NOW: This draft document from the metrics committee is the first technical ballot SEMI has posted for on-line voting.

The standards engineer adds that SEMI staff won't have to retype comments and that having "fewer data entry keystrokes" will cut the number of errors. He says that a normal returned ballot requires between 7000 to 8000 keystrokes. Even a 1% error rate presents a problem, notes Silveira.

Other standards-setting organizations may be using on-line voting, Silveira says. But, he adds, "as far as balloting, we're probably one of the first to do it on a large scale." Bouldin, whose draft document was "chosen to be the guinea pig for the first major ballot," believes the convenience of going on-line "as opposed to hand writing a response and going to a fax machine" will increase the response rate. Another obvious benefit is reducing both paper use and the cost of mailing ballots, says Bouldin, who is project manager for silicon technology development at Texas Instruments. Silveira agrees. "We always thought we kept the paper companies in business."

"For me, the reduction in paper is monumental," says Jackie Ferrell, program manager for standards at International Sematech. "We've been looking forward to [electronic voting] for quite some time, and we're happy to see SEMI doing it."

Standards from the information and control committee are particularly hefty, Ferrell points out. "Some of those documents are more than 100 pages long. Mailing those and trying to get people to [read them is difficult]. The 300-mm material in general is of global interest and involves global participation, so the new procedure should make it a little bit easier to get to the voting constituency involved and ensure more responses on the ballots. Many of those people are traveling all the time."

Speaking "as a user of SEMI standards and a customer of their process," Ferrell says that on-line balloting will streamline voting. "It's kind of a 'push' system instead of a 'pull' system, because if you get a paper that's on your desk you might not get back to it. But if it pops up on your e-mail . . . it's easier to respond to it." Unlike for the blue ballots, participants who have signed up for their company's standards program "are actually required to return technical ballots," Silveira points out. There is a 30-day "mandatory period for return" to reach the required 60% affirmative votes required for standards approval.

Silveira stresses that an on-line program "is viable worldwide" and may prove particularly efficient in Europe, where participants sometimes claim to have problems with their mail systems. SEMI is tackling a problem with the use of Japanese kanji characters, he adds. "There's a double character width for a lot of the kanji characters, I believe, so we're addressing that. Eventually, it will be possible with translation [for Japanese voters] to enter characters in their native language."

The inaugural balloting system does have some limitations. Participants have 30 minutes to submit their votes, for example. After 30 minutes the vote will not be recorded. In addition, using an apostrophe will prevent the vote from being recorded (SEMI suggests substituting a caret), and comments cannot exceed 63,000 characters. This latter limitation is actually an improvement, notes Bouldin. He says the issue of limited space for voter comments was raised at a recent planning meeting, after which SEMI increased the space to 63,000 characters.

The trade association is confident that as long as the documents are electronically secure there shouldn't be any problems, asserts Silveira. Voters need only ensure that their computer can read .pdf files. Standards participants may download Adobe Acrobat Reader for free at the Adobe Web site, http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readermain.html.

To complicate matters slightly, SEMI moved from Mountain View, CA, to new offices in San Jose during the first week of June. The trade association expects to receive feedback during the week of Semicon West beginning July 9. "I think they still have some bugs to work out," says Bouldin. SEMI highly recommends that voters using the on-line ballot also submit their votes by fax. "If there is any breakdown in the system, the redundant vote will verify."

Anyone wishing to see the SEMI metrics committee technical document may access it at http://www.semi.org/ web/wstandards.nsf/url/currentyellow documents.

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