TABLE OF CONTENTS Following is the transcript of a conversation with Chris Saint about his experiences growing up with the new field of mask design. This piece provides historical value as well as direction for the future of mask design.
Recorded November 1, 2001 in his home in California. Questions are from Judy.
What got you started in layout?
There was no one thing. I never set out to become a layout person. Just a long succession of coincidences and forks in the road of life.
Did they even have layout when you started?
Yes, they did. But it was very different. People had to lay out integrated circuits, but they didn't have the CAD tools. It was just the circuit designers who typically did their own layout. It took forever. It was very labor-intensive. There were no computer systems.
Were they drawing layout with pencils?
No, the original layout was people using tape on film-either placing the colored tape on a film by hand or cutting out shapes in a stuff called ruby-lith, where you peeled the red ruby film off of a clear plastic sheet. You built up each layer, one sheet of plastic at a time. You had to make sure they all lined up.
So, some of the first original IC layouts were this red ruby-lith stuff.
And the circuit designers were doing that?
Usually, yes. They may well have sketched something out and had someone else do it, but circuit design itself was very manually intensive. You...
