Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, the semiconductor packager led by billionaire Jason Chang, lost 0.5%.

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It is home to the world's No. 2 and No. 3 chip-packaging and chip-testing companies, Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE) and Siliconware Precision (SPIL) .

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So when the iPad went on sale Saturday, Kyle Wiens and his team at iFixit snapped one up, tore out its silicon heart, and brought it to the semiconductor reverse-engineering specialists at Chipworks to have it x-rayed, cross-sectioned, ground through, photographed, and violated in every possible fashion.

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Unlike most semiconductor executives, who often start in engineering or technology marketing, Mr. Appleton began at Micron as a production worker in 1983.

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Having earned a degree in electrical engineering from Purdue University (1984), he worked in the semiconductor industry for companies like IBM and Cirrus.

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