We started operation in late August 1970, but it took a few months for KMI  just to be qualified by AMI due to an invisible contamination problem, which we called "Ghost Contamination". The initial qualifi- cation samples that KMI sent to AMI for testing failed several times. AMI/KMI engineers did their best to analyze failed parts to identify the cause of failure but the cause was not easily found. It took a few months until they finally discovered that the contamination was being caused by the floor wax we used. Particles from the wax were floating around in the air after drying and these invisible clear particles contaminated the surface of MOS-LSI (Engineers could not see them because they were transparent), which were burnt by very high temperature (420C) of Die Attach heater block. Because the carbonized particles were conductive when they were burnt, they were short circuiting the chip. We stopped using floor wax and the green light to begin operation came from AMI in late December. It was the greatest Xmas Gift for KMI.

KMI experienced rough road of semiconductor business in second year, or the first year of real operation - 1971. As KMI demonstrated amazing yield improvement from the beginning of its regular production, AMI changed its initial policy from building only Ricoh's requirement at KMI to building all AMI's entire  volume in KMI, except what they could produce in Santa Clara Pilot Line. This amounted to roughly 95% of total AMI volume, shutting their Tijuana operation down (Tijuana had a very serious problem coinci- dentally). KMI had to increase the capacity by more than 5 times in less than 3 months, as Tijuana volume had to be transferred to KMI before the contract with Tijuana company expired.

That is when KMI achieved yet another MIRACLE. KMI hired many new operators and trained them 24 hours a day, with 3 shifts operation of Training Line. These inexperienced new operators were added to production line at the fastest rate possible. AMI believed it would be inevitable that our defect rate would increase significantly, though it would only be temporary. HOWEVER, KMI maintained its low defect rate throughout this entire period of unreasonably fast capacity increase and AMI management was once again amazed !!

We then encountered a problem toward the end of 1971. A worldwide slowdown in the semiconductor business forced AMI to reduce its volume significantly. AMI laid off its people in Santa Clara and requested KMI also to lay off about 1/3 of its operators, only a few months after crazy hiring of new operators! We insisted AMI that layoff of employees in Korea is unusual and that we would have serious hiring problem in the future if we laid off our people, because KMI's reputation in Korean society would be seriously damaged. We proposed to lay off several more engineers there whose total salary would be equivalent to 1/3 of our operators' total wages (Korean labor rate was only 17 cents an hour at that time). We finally convinced AMI to accept our proposal. There was no lay-off at KMI !! Instead, KMI reduced volume switching normal 6 days a week operation to 4 days a week operation.

After this instance, I came up a crazy idea. Since we had to reduce volume anyway, I proposed to Manny that we shut down KMI for 2 weeks and send employees home to celebrate New Year with families. The shutdown was not the crazy part of the proposal. What was crazy was when I surprised Manny by proposing to pay each employee a 1/2 month salary as a New Year Special Bonus to help them return home! I still remember Manny's surprised face as he looked at his crazy Plant Manager! An unplanned additional bonus payment when AMI was asking us to lay people off  was really a crazy idea to me too.

I explained my logic to Manny : The total cost of Special Bonus would be only several thousands of dollars - a small amount compared to the total KMI cost, as the wage rate was very low in Korea at that time. But the unexpected bonus should be a real bonus which could buy the priceless loyalty of employees at a very low cost, especially when we gave it in appreciation of their hard work and excellent achieve- ment, in spite of a very difficult company situation . It didn't take many words to convince  Manny and he said OK!!

About six months later, business turned around and AMI needed fast increase of volume - faster than expected. KMI was able to respond to AMI's demand without any delay, as all our people were well trained by then and everyone was ready to pay the company back for the special bonus they had received with hard work and company loyalty. AMI/KMI was able to recover the Special Bonus in just a few weeks (or a few days?) as AMI was able to ship the entire requirement on time without any delay. In addition, the loyalty of KMI employees lasted a long time.

KMI started another project - ZD (Zero Defect) campaign. We needed something to utilize the excess hours caused by a slow-down, rather than to be depressed by it. The ZD Campaign  was a very effective way to forget the slowdown, to utilize much of the material down times and further to improve the yield of operation. 

We had a very hard time during the first half of 1972, but we didn't waist this time and achieved better performance in the later part of the year, constantly amazing AMI management.