當前半導體製造業的特色是研究與生產合一，以因應半導體製成的複雜性與快速的技術變遷。半導體業的技術變遷可用所謂的「摩爾定律」來說明：在每一到兩年內，在積體電路晶片尚可容納的電晶體數量將會倍增。然而實驗室與工廠的合一，使得同時肩負研究與生產功能的設備，其運轉時間的分配成為重要問題，形塑了半導體晶圓廠中工作的時間特性。本文分析半導體晶圓廠為求同時滿足研究與生產的需求，造就的兩類雇員——技術員和工程師之工作的時間秩序。透過分工，技術員不需解決生產過程中發生的問題，工作的特徵是一系列可預測次序而持續時間短暫的事件，呈現的是「單序」之形態。相較之下，由於半導體的製程複雜性，工程師面對不定時出現的問題，必須同時處理各種解決所需時間不一的事件，其工作為「多序」的形態。而由於設備運轉時間由製造部門壟斷，解決問題和製程研究所需的實驗常無法順利取得該時間，使得工程師多序工作的形態更為鞏固。晶圓廠內因技術特性而構築的時間分配體制，造就了工程師長工時的工作形態。

Contemporary semiconductor manufacturing is characterized by the erasure of the boundary between research and production, the arrangement that seeks to accommodate to the intricacy of chip making process and the rapidity of technology change. The rapidity of technology change in semiconductor manufacturing, frequently couched in terms of the so-called ‘Moore's Law,' maintains at a speed that the number of transistors that can be put on an integrated circuit doubles every one to two years. The indistinguishability between laboratory and factory, however, makes the allocation of the machine time—both for research and for production purposes—a prominent factor that shapes the temporal order of work in semiconductor fabs. This paper analyzes the temporal order of technicians' as well as engineers' work. Technicians are exempted from handling problems that arise in the production process, and their work is characterized by short, successive tasks in a predictable sequence—a ‘monochronic' order. In contrast, due to the complexity of semiconductor manufacturing, engineers face problems that arise randomly, and are forced to undertake several tasks which last for various lengths of time simultaneously—their work is in a ‘polychronic' order. With the machine time monopolized by the production department, difficulty in gaining access to the machine time for experimentation, the basis for both problem-solving and research work, contributes further to the polychronicity of engineers' work. In semiconductor fabs, miniaturization trend dictates the way machine time is allocated, which in turn leads to the long working hours of engineers.