This leadership in research also pushed each company to make significant
commitments to lead the industry into new technology platforms.
For example, when the industry needed to increase the size of
118 Open Innovation
wafers from 150 to 200 millimeters to increase its yield of good chips
and to lower its costs, IBM worked closely with all the leading semiconductor
equipment suppliers to develop the required equipment specifications
for the new wafer size. IBM even funded research activities at many
of the equipment companies, to spur them to adopt the 200-millimeter
wafer size—and IBM’s proposed specifications for that size.