IEEE Cases 1999 - Making Good Wafers Look Bad

Don Fisher, an electrical engineer, worked for Dicers, a company that purchased wafers for microprocessor chips from another company and then diced, packaged, and sold them. Don was assigned the task of testing these wafers. After a while, he was instructed by his manager to alter the testing process in such a manner that the quality of the purchased wafers was made to seem lower than it really was, which had the effect of the lowering the price paid. Don objected to this practice and refused to go along. Eventually, he was discharged.

From:  Some Recent Engineering Ethics Cases That Have Come to the IEEE

Author:  Stephen H. Unger

Columbia University

Presented at the OEC International Conference on Ethics in Engineering and Computer Science, March 1999