PRECISION engineers help turn ideas into cost-effective reality through equipment design.

Take, for example, the semiconductor industry.

Our contribution is not in one specific invention but in fitting all the pieces of the puzzle that makes the automated integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing process so smooth-flowing, at a low cost.

It explains why a laptop today costs under $2,000 and is so fast, compared to the 1990s, when a laptop cost easily above $10,000.

For us, there is nothing quite like transforming an idea into a humming production line. That is the thrill and challenge of being an equipment design engineer.

A new engineering graduate in 1982, I started work in the semiconductor industry as a process engineer doing the manufacturing process of integrated circuits. I joined the semiconductor equipment development industry as an equipment design engineer two years later.

In that position, I had to come up with solutions to problems at semiconductor factories, at a time when my peers could not even comprehend such a job and its scope. They were in more traditional engineering professions such as building construction.

For example, I had to design a machine to help the operator load IC chips into a tester automatically, thus relieving them from standing there for hours doing it by hand. They could now simply load the chips in, and come back some four hours later.

It did not just save money but also relieved skilled manpower to do other work. Together with my bosses and colleagues, I learnt on-the-job about equipment design and the industry's design methodology, as we took on equipment development projects one after another.

We also had the opportunity to work in various technologies such as automation, semiconductor testing, automated vision and automated electro-plating, while developing equipment for the world market, shipping them to the United States, Malta, China, South Korea and South-east Asia.

In developing all this equipment, we learnt to work in tandem with precision machine shops to fabricate precise, miniature, complex machine parts and good-quality welded structures.

Similarly, we worked closely with surface finishing companies to achieve special finishing treatment on our metallic machine parts, to enhance the frictional properties so that equipment functioned smoothly.

This on-the-job learning sharpened our independent thinking and team-building skills, critical factors in successful equipment design.

Exposure to the global semiconductor industry broadened my horizon and presented me with the latest technological advances in industry.

I had to have an inquiring mind and interest in industry trends and developments happening at the global level at all times.

Armed with a degree in mechanical engineering, I started to do research on technology on my own time, out of personal interest. It triggered a learning process that is exciting and which has not stopped since then.

With 24 years of experience, I capture a customer's equipment request and translate it into automated equipment on his production floor.

I have a great sense of achievement and satisfaction when my job is done, as the equipment hums away on the production floor.

The freedom for me to create a useful engineering system has given me the passion to keep going in equipment design and development over the years.

And as long as the world still needs factories, I will always be thinking up some new equipment for the factory of the future.

At the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SIMTech), a research institute of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star), I continue my work in equipment design and development.

I also hope to train younger staff - the next generation in this exciting precision engineering arena.

My professional growth has mirrored that of the semiconductor equipment industry here, which took root in the early 1970s.

Then, a small group of local entrepreneurs provided engineering services by selling and making spare parts for machine maintenance in the electronics factories of multinational corporations.

A new niche within the precision engineering (PE) group began to develop, as a segment of the electronics sector, the semiconductor industry, showed promise.

This small group of entrepreneurs started to develop equipment to improve the productivity of manufacturing lines for the semiconductor industry.

With this push, by the 1980s, the semiconductor back-end equipment industry in Singapore was born. Semiconductor equipment for the world market began to be made here.

With the momentum started, wafer-fabrication work began in Singapore in the early 1990s.

Today, the precision engineering and semiconductor equipment clusters remain interlinked, depending on each other and striving together to be cost competitive in the world's markets.

Here to help the precision engineering and semiconductor equipment clusters achieve this is SIMTech.

Since its inception 15 years ago, SIMTech has achieved many research breakthroughs in precision engineering.

One was the development of a sol-gel-based multi-layer coating which made laundry irons scratch-proof and which was commercialised by electronics giant Philips in its laundry iron products.

This gel is also being used as an anti-slip coating for floor surfaces in the building and construction industry.

SIMTech also developed the world's first ultra-precision machining method using diamond cutters to carve steel into moulds to optical quality with the finest possible smoothness. This has reduced the manufacturing cost of contact lenses as the method eliminates the traditional nickel plating process.

In the pipeline are liquid forging - doing away with traditional die-cast methods and making stronger components in the process. So is in-situ X-ray measurement, where a team is developing high-speed software resolution of images.

Currently, research and development work is being carried out to create equipment which will function in the nanometer range of motion, that is, in the scale of atoms and molecules.

At this scale, a single step the machine takes will probably be several millionths of a millimetre or about the size of a virus. Such equipment will rely on robots, since the required precise movements are humanly impossible.

To make these breakthroughs, we will need a young, creative and energetic workforce to join the ranks of precision engineers.

The writer is head of the Equipment Innovation and Development Programme at the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SIMTech)

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