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SEMI 50th: Applied’s ‘Traveling’ Product
Display Predated SEMICON
How did semiconductor equipment
companies promote their gear to
customers before SEMICON?
There were the big electronics
shows, like IEEE in New York and
Wescon in Los Angeles, but they
mostly focused on components.
“The big problem with the IEEE
and the Wescon shows was that you
had these many different vendors,
manufacturers, and you were sort of
displaced. You were off in one
corner. Relays and transistors
versus equipment,” said
Joseph Nava, who joined
Applied Materials as its
fifth employee in February 1968, working in
sales.
“I remember one year
… in New York, we were
right next to a manufacturer that had stamping
machines and all through
the show this thing stamped
out metal and ca-chunk, ca-chunk,
ca-chunk. We were driving ourselves
mad because this thing was so noisy
and you couldn’t talk to people.”
However, back in Silicon Valley,
Nava came up with a different –
and unusual - way to showcase
one of Applied’s early products to
customers.
In the first year that Applied was
formed, its founder Mike McNeally
designed a silicon dioxide deposition
system and the concept was pitched
to National Semiconductor, which
agreed to buy one.
“We didn’t have a company truck
back then and so I happened to have
my personal car which was a large
’65 Lincoln which had a big trunk
and backseat,” Nava said in a 2004
interview for the SEMI oral history
project.
“I delivered it [to National] in the
back of my Lincoln. But before I delivered it, I decided I’d better take it
around the valley
and
business, the two companies
eventually put aside their rivalry to
support the new trade organization.
“Applied became part of SEMI.
There was no way you couldn’t
help but be part of it,” said Nava.
“SEMI provided a vehicle, a platform
in which to be represented
show
people. So I
had a moving display of this piece of
equipment. It was roughly 2 feet by 2
feet by 4 feet,” he explained.
“So I’d go over to different companies and I’d say, ‘Come on out
to my car. I’ve got to show you
something.’ And so that was the first
show, first trade show just about.
And it worked.”
Of course, that all changed in
1971 when the first SEMICON was
launched. Even though SEMI cofounder Bill Hugle was a fierce competitor of Applied in the equipment
A 1965
Lincoln Continental
sedan. Not the actual car used
by Joseph Nava. Probably not,
anyway. Source: ClassicCars.com
throughout the industry and
throughout the world and so it was
a major impetus to be part of it and
help it.”
This article is based on interviews
conducted by Craig Addison for the
SEMI oral history project, from 2004
to 2008.
10 | Monday, July 20www.semiconductordigest.com
