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| History of semiconductor manufacturing in Australia |
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| vk3yedotcom:
Interesting article here https://www.pearcey.org.au/blog/2020/the-rise-and-fall-of-semiconductor-manufacturing-in-australia/ |
| julian1:
It's a bit surprising there's no collective interest from universities for a research grade facility, to experiment with low-density processes. Kind of like the lucas heights breeder reactor, but for semi-conductor research. |
| coppice:
--- Quote from: julian1 on December 04, 2023, 08:10:37 pm ---It's a bit surprising there's no collective interest from universities for a research grade facility, to experiment with low-density processes. Kind of like the lucas heights breeder reactor, but for semi-conductor research. --- End quote --- A number of universities in a number of countries were acquiring semiconductor production facilities in the early 70s, when Australia dropped out of the market. They mostly regretted the acquisitions, as commercial development moved so fast they couldn't keep up financially, even if they were doing leading edge research. Some were lucky, and able to direct the equipment to fine non-semiconductor lithography applications, like SAW research, which was very active at that time. |
| VK3DRB:
"National Semiconductor opened a factory in Bayswater, Victoria and began the manufacture of silicon transistors about 1973." Fairchild had a plant in Bayswater, Victoria in the very early 70's that manufactured some of the old 7400 series of logic gates. That is more significant, because to my knowledge, it was the only solid state IC manufacturing on a commercial scale in this country. Sadly, gone. The biggest manufacture of discrete semiconductors in Oz, would have to be Bosch in Clayton, Victoria. At one stage a few years ago the world's biggest manufacturer of zener diodes for the automotive industry. I designed a machine to test each of 525 diodes whilst still on their wafer about ten years ago and it is still running today. |
| .RC.:
If I recall correctly in one of Dave's videos, Dick Smith says people blame him for the demise of the electronic manufacturing industry in Australia, when from the reality was he was just in the right place at the right time with the right know how and drive, the industry was going to be killed off by the removal of the government protection and he simply procured components from overseas. If it was not him, someone else would have simply imported the components. The 1970's saw a lot of removal of Australian manufacturing. Machine tool makers went out of business, large steel manufacturing, ship building, etc etc etc. All started their demise in the 1970's. then the 1980 came and then the "equity maaaaate" "Aussie will save you" 1990's. And here we are today, which I think all stems back to the government decisions of the early 1970's. |
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