MICRO: Lefty

A chip and a prayer

Would he roll onto the stage in a wheelchair? Limp to the podium with a cane? These questions hung in the air of the hangar-sized conference room before Steven Appleton's keynote speech at Semicon West. An avid stunt pilot, the chief executive of Micron Technology had crashed an experimental plane in Idaho only a few days before the July address in San Francisco.

After the audience viewed a video montage of his more-successful aerial antics, a grinning Appleton strolled to the mike sporting a bruise on his high forehead. "It takes more than an airplane crash to kill the CEO of a DRAM company," he quipped. The theme of the speech was collaboration between chipmaker and equipment supplier, and Appleton drew on his experience as a stunt pilot to emphasize the crucial role of good communication.

"If collaboration isn't done right, it can be very costly," he noted. Micron's experience shows that advanced process tools are keys to cost-efficient manufacturing and that process and equipment readiness must coincide in order to keep per-bit costs down, Appleton said.

The executive screened a video of a fighter jet crashing because of poor communication between the cockpit and tower. The pilot ejected safely seconds before the $25-million plane exploded on impact. Cautioned Appleton: "We can go through $25 million in the blink of an eye when we're not working well together." — JC