Enabling Collaborative Solutions Across the Semiconductor Manufacturing Ecosystem

A qualitative empirical study of 29 semiconductor manufacturer and supplier firms investigates the challenges associated with implementing lean practices that require broadly based collaboration across firms. The study's primary contribution is a model of the semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem, which shows how chipmakers, suppliers of enabling technologies, subsystem suppliers, and their respective competitors interact to develop the right technologies at the right time. The study finds that the biggest challenge to industry-wide collaboration is managing knowledge flows between users and suppliers in a manner that allows all parties to collaborate without losing competitive advantage. The paper also presents insights into how inter-organizational knowledge is created synchronously in the semiconductor industry. Finally, the paper makes suggestions as to how interfirm knowledge can be managed.