Photomask Japan (PMJ) is a relatively small conference – with about 500 attendees it is just under half the size of BACUS, the US conference on semiconductor mask making held each fall in Monterey. But small is much of what I like about PMJ. I can go to most of the papers, navigate the poster session, and attend the one panel discussion without feeling overwhelmed. The papers are generally good, with the normal mix of “quite good” with “quite abysmal”. Since the conference organizers take themselves very seriously (they are Japanese, after all), the marketing bottom dwellers of our industry rarely make appearances here to give sales talks thinly disguised as technical papers.

Day 1 was uneventful. I have to admit that the technology and science of making photomasks, the topic of the first day of talks, is not particularly interesting to me. By all rights it should be fascinating, since it is enormously challenging and immensely important. But for some reason, it does nothing for me. I’m glad there are people that revel in this topic, and I am glad that they are here this week. But for me, I am like the pre-med student sitting through calculus – I know it is important, but I cant wait till it is over. Now, the use of photomasks in a lithography process – that is what makes me wake up at 4am to read the book of abstracts. To each his own, I guess. That topic begins tomorrow – I can’t wait.

Tuesday night also included the conference banquet. This year’s banquet (standing room only – there were no chairs) was both novel and typical. It was typical in that the doors opened exactly on time, followed by a mad rush towards the buffet line. Don’t stand between a hungry lithographer and free food. And typical because it ended precisely 90 minutes later with all the food gone, the beer gone thirty minutes earlier, and no one lingering to chat. And it was novel because the entertainment was, well, entertaining.

Let me give you some background. BACUS (remember, the US version of this conference held each fall) is renowned for providing phenomenal entertainment programs, with maskmakers singing and dancing and putting on skits full of insider jokes and nerd humor (click here for pictures of past BACUS shows). But while the BACUS entertainment has imploded into misery over the last few years, the PMJ entertainment has gotten better and better. A rock band called “Progressive Masks”, made up completely of industry folks, did a great job. The song “Haze on the Photomask”, sung to the tune of “Smoke on the Water”, had us on the floor rolling with laughter. And the Hula Girls (and better yet, the Hula Guys) were great. Way to go PMJailians!