Korea restores first 4-megabit DRAM design drawings, returns them to ETRI

South Korea's interior ministry said Tuesday that the national archives have restored the original design drawings for the country's first 4-megabit DRAM chip and returned them to the institute that created them.

The National Archives of Korea restored 15 sets comprising 67 sheets of drawings produced in 1986 and 1987 and transferred them to the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), which had held the originals.

The drawings are full-chip layouts showing the structure of the entire device, recording the techniques used to shrink memory cells and to arrange and connect wiring and circuits so the chip could hold four times the data of the 1-megabit DRAM that preceded it.

The drawings, between 1 and 3 meters long, were heavily creased and folded and had torn edges, while the adhesive on plastic tape used to mend them had discolored and hardened. Specialists spent eight months on the restoration, removing the tape with dedicated tools and organic solvents, filling losses with hanji, traditional Korean paper, dyed with natural materials including alder berries and acorn husks, and rolling the sheets onto a 6-centimeter neutral cylinder before placing them in custom-made preservation boxes.

The restored drawings have been digitized at high resolution and are available as high-quality originals on the archives' website.

The 4-megabit DRAM project was established by the government in 1986 as a joint ultra-high-density semiconductor technology development program. Led by the government and ETRI, it brought together private companies including Samsung Semiconductor & Telecommunications, Goldstar Semiconductor and Hyundai Electronics along with academics.

"The restoration of the 4-megabit DRAM drawings is an achievement that raises the historical and academic value of our semiconductor industry by a step, and we will work on preservation and use so that this record, which can be called the first design drawing of a semiconductor powerhouse, can become a living asset for research sites and the public," said Park Se-woong, president of ETRI.

The drawings were released to mark the 19th Semiconductor Day, observed on Oct. 29, the date in 1994 when Korea's semiconductor exports reached $10 billion.

"This restoration is meaningful in that it revived the value of records showing the growth and innovation of our semiconductor industry on the occasion of the 19th Semiconductor Day," said Lee Yong-chul, director of the National Archives of Korea, adding that he hopes the restored records will be widely used to raise public interest in the semiconductor industry and serve as a foundation for future technological innovation.

The National Archives has run its restoration and reproduction support service since 2008, restoring 9,310 sheets of records for 82 private and public institutions, including the original March 1 Independence Declaration and the certificate awarded to marathoner Sohn Kee-chung for winning the Berlin Olympics.