I believe the year was 1995, and I was working on my first paper with Jeff Byers, then at SEMATECH. We were presenting at the SPIE Microlithography Symposium, the big event of the year for us lithographers, and Jeff and John Petersen were teaching me about reaction-diffusion and chemically amplified resists, while I was building their models into my software package, PROLITH. Back in those days of youthful exuberance, all three of us had the bad habit of finishing our papers at the last minute – which usually made for some very late nights in the hotel room at the conference. This year was no exception. I made my way to John’s room – where I knew that he and Jeff were trying to finish up the paper the night before the presentation – to see what I could do to help.

As I walked into the room, I noticed the place was littered with laptops, each running massive PROLITH simulations to try to get enough data for the paper. My eyes began to widen as the businessman in me took over from the scientist: SEMATECH had bought two copies of PROLITH, but John and Jeff were running a half dozen “illegal” copies in order to get the job done in time. But before I could open my mouth, John snapped “Shut up and give me your laptop!” What else could I do? After all, I was on the paper too.

We finished the paper in the nick of time, and it turned out pretty good, in my humble opinion. It was the first of many times when Jeff taught me about what really goes on inside of a photoresist. But when I got back to Austin, I made sure that the next version of PROLITH had copy-protection licensing software and a hardware dongle. Jeff and John and all the other last-minute lithographers have complained to me about it ever since, but I say, don’t blame me for trying to make an honest living – it’s John and Jeff’s fault!