I was reminded of one just the other day. It took place years ago, and involved the typical misjudgment an eager but technically inexperienced "marcom" (marketing and communications) team can sometimes exhibit. The company involved will remain nameless, but was one of the original wafer fab companies that started out as an independent, was acquired by a conglomerate, then like too many others it eventually vanished from my radar screen. It was time for the marcom team, which was made up of inhouse supervisors and outside contractors, to come up with a clever, eye-catching ad for what used to be our industry's primary thick, slick magazines. In case you haven't noticed, or if you're new to the CS industry, we haven't seen a "thick slick" in years! Even silicon has been on the slim fast diet, so it isn't just hard times for the compounds. This is an ancient times wafer fab story, which takes place back when people actually had ad budgets.

The marcom team hired a high priced photographer, donned visitor bunny suits and descended on the company's cleanroom where they, of course, had their pick of camera shots. Bunnies abounded, but people shots wouldn't make the cut. Too weird. Too spaceage unreal. The team was there to make the wafer the star. There were wafers galore, of course, in all stages of manufacture, but they were all so clear and... well, rather nondescript. Certainly not the stuff a flash camera would take to kindly. The marcom team and their camera person searched and searched, clicked and clicked, much to the consternation of the bunny suited professionals, all of whom hid their glares behind their safety glasses and kept on working.

"Camera alert! Colorful wafer. Really colorful wafer!!! Huzzah!!!" the photographer shouted. Everyone on the marcom team agreed and the marcom director slapped the hand of the techie who tried to remove the wafer from their gaze. It was a nice hazy blue/green colored wafer. Quite beautiful in the right light. Almost glowing, if properly lit from the equipment the photographer started to set in place. The team pushed protesting bunnies out of the way and got to work. Click, click, click, click.... in only two hours, they surely had it. Rush to the photo lab (no "photoshops" or digital capability back then, of course) and in only two weeks, they got their plenty to choose from and obviously chose the most colorful one.

Since everybody trusts a marcom team (or, more likely, simply ignores them) nothing happened until the project was at the point of no return. What obviously and painfully came to eventually be realized, the company person who signed off on the project before it went to press wasn't a technical person. Shortly after the four-color separations were already at the magazine publishers print shops and the runs locked in, the sad but revealing truth came to light. It occurred when three big boxes of lovely brochures featuring the now infamous colorful wafer were presented to the entire staff of marketing and sales people for their quarterly strategy meeting. This was to be the marcom surprise of the season and the first time the seasoned sales pros even knew of the project. They actually worked in the field. With prospective customers who knew their wafers. Like the kind of people who were supposed to get the brochures and read the ad. One especially bright sales gal who actually knew her cleanroom stuff ... and the products the company actually produced, picked up one of the gorgeous finished brochures and said: "Do you guys realize you've featured a contaminated wafer?" Obviously not.

After a lengthy discussion of what a contaminated wafer was and why featuring it in the company's ads and brochures was not a particularly smooth move, given that everyone who sees those ads and brochures is likely technically savvy enough to know what they're looking at, the tone of the room went down a few notches, eventually to match the status of those responsible for the blunder. The only upside they could think of was that the photograph would certainly be noticed. There have been other such stories, like the one where bunny-suited cleanroom workers were asked to take off their safety glasses for a photo op because the safety glasses made the process guys look too alien. That picture actually made it to print too, and again, the offending company will remain nameless.