WANTED: Integration Across The Supply Chain

The need for better design, production and test integration had been discussed in the semiconductor industry for over 10 years. The concept had been repeated so many times, in so many contexts, that it’s taken on the feel of a shallow aphorism, like the saying “power tends to corrupt” or “he who laughs last, laughs best”

But the need for better supply chain integration has finally emerged as a real necessity with meaningful and specific attributes.

To meet consumers need for cramming more functionality into smaller, cheaper cell phones and multimedia devices, chip designers need an integrated design solution that lets them optimize interdie and die-to-substrate connectivity for signal performance and manufacturability. A key part of this process lies in co-design opportunities between the IC and package, the package and printed-circuit board or both-in order to satisfy tough performance, cost and size goals. Design for Manufacturing (DFM) has become an essential component in the production process and many see a future when DFM ceases to be independent step, but integrated directly into the design and verification process. New technologies such Through Silicon Vias (TSVs) also require an unprecedented integration between design, manufacturing and multi die packaging.

The fact is there is no forum today that brings together chip designers, wafer processing engineers, packaging specialists, and test plan developers under one roof to talk about the growing set of interdependencies and co-design needs.

We are trying to do that at SEMICON West.

Because Silicon Valley is the home of so many fabless semiconductor firms, consumer product companies like Apple and HP and Cisco, and leading IDMs like Intel, SEMICON West is the natural center of the emerging collaborative development model. SEMICON West already is one of the largest EDA expositions in the world with over 3000 attendees interested in design automation (including hundreds of CTOs) and exhibitors such as Synopsis, Magma and Cadence. And, most of the large US mobile and consumer products companies attend West, as well as every major IDM and fabless semiconductor company in the world.

The next step is to develop programs and forums to encourage and nurture collaboration and that is what we’ve done, especially this year. Some of the programs that leveraging this need for design-production-packaging-test collaboration include:

• IDMs, OSATs, EDA suppliers, packaging equipment firms, and wafer processing companies will meet in comprehensive Packaging Sumitt to discuss the product, market and supply chain implications of 3D TSVs


• High Density Packaging will dominate the TAP TechXPOT on Tuesday, July 15 from 3:00pm–5:00pm.


• The increasing complexity of microelectronic devices is bringing about new thinking around semiconductor test. The new methodologies and ideas around test that will require industry collaboration and cooperation will be discussed on both Tuesday and Wednesday.


• The synergy between anew materials and new processes for 32 and 22 nm manufacturing will highlight the Wafer Processing TechXPOT.


• The linkage between lower power design and DFM will be addressed on the Thursday keynote by Jim Miller of Cadence.


• DFM and the increasing complexity of “manufacturing sign-off” will be address throughout Thursday.


• Standards committee meetings—where collaboration takes place at the highest, most substantive level—will be held throughout SEMICON

If you have any ideas on how we can do better—at SEMICON West or any other SEMI program-- in bringing the increasingly interdependent elements of the supply chain together, please let me know.

Traffic Flow, Leads and Booth Location at SEMICON West

One of the most prominent goals for exhibitors at SEMICON West events is lead generation and one of the top concerns is booth location. Many exhibitors believe that leads are directly related to booth location, in fact, many firmly believe that location is the most important factor in lead generation.

This isn’t true and we have the data to prove it. Here is the lead distribution and booth visit appointments scheduled through BD Metrics for SEMICON West 2006 by Hall:

Percent of Average
North Hall= 99%
South Hall= 113%
West 1 = 99%
West 2 = 84%

While you might think from this data that South Hall is significantly better and West Hall Level 2 is significantly worse for leads, additional scrutiny reveals this not to be the case. If we remove the top lead generating exhibitor from South Hall, the difference between North and West Level 1 virtually disappears. West Hall numbers can be explained by the population of many smaller start-ups in the New and Emerging Technology area on Level 2 that year. On closer inspection, 8 of the top 12 most visited booths in West Hall were on Level 2. Looking at the distribution of booth visits across all the 4 top halls, we see the most visited booths randomly distributed between the halls, and within halls (front and back of hall are nearly the same).

What we know is that leads are primarily a function of exhibitor marketing. Companies that conduct pre-show mailings, have interesting displays, promotions, and well trained booth staffs generate more leads. Many of the top lead generating firms have special lead generation programs, such as product demonstrations or promotions. These firms can take their booth marketing program anywhere in Moscone and perform equally well in lead generation.

If you want to be successful in generating leads, you have to create a program that will interest your target market, compel them to your booth, and incent them to give you their badge for a swipe. Both location has very little to do with it.

Packaging Innovation At West

Scott Kulicke, chairman and CEO of Kulicke and Soffa, gave a provocative keynote at the recent SEMICON show in Singapore. He pointed out that that the semiconductor industry has undergone pervasive dis-integration to achieve today’s cost efficiencies through supply chain specialization. Through outsourcing of manufacturing, through outsourcing of design and process technology, and through outsourcing of assembly, packaging and test, the industry has achieved great efficiencies, but not without hidden costs. Today, every supplier intensively competes exclusively with companies at the same level in the supply chain, preventing the kind of innovations through vertical integration that are vital in this era of consumer-driven electronics.

Kulicke was lamenting the fact that the current industry structure prevents packaging equipment companies from working directly with the end customer. Without this interaction, he questioned whether meaningful innovation—the kind you can make a lot of money on—can be achieved.

It is exactly this kind of need that we are trying to address at SEMICON West. Silicon Valley is no longer the center of the most advanced, most productive fabs in the world—they have mostly moved to Asia. Yet, the region is by far the leading center in fabless chip design, venture funding, and home to some of the leading consumer electronics companies in the world, such as Apple and HP. It is also remains an R&D center to Intel, AMD and others and home to leading EDA companies. All these audiences immerse themselves in SEMICON West-related events, programs and meetings. In this multi-chip, package-on-package world, no other region can hope to bring the full supply chain--from design to production and test—including the leading fabless chip companies, the leading venture backers, and the leading OEMs together to explore, learn and take part in the collaborative creative process necessary to compete in the digital world.

At this year’s SEMICON West we have tried to organize events and programs precisely to foster this full supply chain interaction that Kulicke was referring to. On Monday, July 15 we have a organized a Packaging Summit that will bring together design, fabless, equipment, materials, OSATs and IDMs together to talk about Through Silicon Via or TSV technology. TSV may force intensive design-manufacturing-test integration at levels unprecedented in the history of the industry.

On Wednesday, we have tried to organize the entire day’s events around Mobile Electronics with keynotes and TechXPOTs programs devoted to the special needs of mobile electronics in wafer processing, packaging, test and design. These programs—together with exhibitors like Advantest, Synopsys, Cadence, K&S, ASM, and others—we have to overcome the kind of disintegrated, specialized supply chain we see today.

All the ingredients are in place—hopefully with a heat and a little stirring, sparks will fly.

The IC Industry Has Matured, So What

Good commentary by Patrick Mannion--The IC Industry Has Matured, So What? --in this week's EETimes.  

The whining in this industry is really getting out of hand.  Consolidation, Slow Growth, Maturation, Whither Europe, Whither US...Boo Hoo.

Does every panel at a conference--or news report-- have to be about the consensus industry forecast?   Just how many people's jobs, careers or portfolios are based broad industry metrics. Any engineers out there?  How about sales and marketing people use this information to plan their day, week, career? Doesn't anyone care about new applications, new technologies, hot start ups, the little battles that mark the yearly swings in market share?  

In its place, forecasts and speculation on industry structure are certainly appropriate, but it seems to replacing discussions about technology and applications, the stuff most people care about, are interested in, and need to be on top of.  Just how many market analysts and corporate strategists who live and die speculating on industry structure are there out there?  

Of course, SEMI is as guilty as anyone in the industry for creating forums that might gravitate to doom and gloom prognosticating.  Like I said, it has its place.  But what's going on in Automative, Medical, Power, Mobile and is really exciting.  What's happening in IC packaging and high k, metal gate is essential stuff for thousands of engineers.  That's where the action is--applications, technology, products.  

Talk about industry structure and our collective financial prospects is like complaining about the weather.  We all succumb to it sometimes, but there's little we can do it about so give it a rest.  

SEMICON Singapore Video

Innovation At Work in Singapore

“Technology Diffusion” is one of those intellectual concepts that you don’t expect to see taking place right before your eyes, but that’s what I witnessed at SEMICON Singapore.

The theory of Diffusion of Innovations is what every young marketer learns and its a useful guide to establishing marketing strategy. The theory is about how innovations spread through society in an S curve, as the early adopters and innovators select the technology first, followed by the early majority and late majority, and eventually laggards. The theory states that innovation diffusion is a process that occurs over time through five stages: Knowledge, Persuasion, Decision, Implementation and Confirmation. There’s a lot been written about it.

At the show this week, I kicked off the Advanced Packaging seminars at the Semiconductor Technology Symposium with a few clunky words and hung around to hear the opening keynotes and presentations on copper wire bonding. With the skyrocketing price of gold, copper wire bonding has been become a hot topic. While copper wire has been used for awhile on simpler devices, it hasn’t been widely deployed high volume chips because, well, it’s hard to do. The presentations discussed the latest research on copper wire bonding, showing the challenges, the costs, the process techniques, the new test methodologies needed. Very detailed.

The room was full—200 people—packaging engineers from every major OSAT in the region. You could hear a pin drop during the presentations. Every key detail was noted by the audience (their heads would drop simultaneously as they all took notes on the same point). As the morning sessions ended, I left for the exhibit floor, as did everyone else, single file down the escalators and through security. The crowd—over a hundred engineers—streamed directly into the K&S, Shinkawa and ASM booths (the top wire bonders) at the front of the hall. You know they were all talking copper.

In about 6 months, watch for all the new copper bonded products to start coming out.

Nanotechnology Futures

This video was played at our recent Strategic Business Conference in Napa Valley and you won't see a better a vision of the possibilities and opportunities emerging in nanotechnology.

Pssst, looking for growth?

I admit it.

Sometimes I’m the first one to think and speak about the semiconductor industry as if its just one, big, monolithic entity.

But the reality is that each segment, each region, each customer, and even each fab is operating on it own dynamic. Sure, we tally them all open for book-to-bill numbers, forecasts and financials, but operationally we need to be technology-specific, fab-specific and customer-specific.

Which brings me to my point: things are hoppin’ in Singapore. It is estimated that capital spending will decline by 10% to 15% globally in 2008, but the semiconductor equipment market in Southeast Asia is expected to grow from $3.05 billion to $3.13 billion in 2008. The assembly and test equipment market represents about 50% of this market. In materials, the Southeast Asia market will grow from $6.8 billion to close to $7.6 billion—an increase of about 12%. The packaging materials segment within this market is expected to reach $5.0 billion in 2008, surpassing North America. For more information on the region, check out the market summary done by the SEMI Industry Stats team.

In addition to front-end and backend semiconductors, Singapore is also hot on PV. REC and First Solar have announced major plants for the region and government planners and investors see PV as an area for growth.

SEMICON Singapore on May 2-5 is nearly sold out and we expect the show to be like the market and the weather: hot.

I am so impressed with our Committees and the great job they did in putting the program together. We have Scott Kulicke giving one of the keynotes, and the packaging and test programmes (noticed how I used the Queen’s spelling) are deep and targeted as usual. I know the Tuesday PV session will be standing room only.

In addition to the show’s normal strengths in the backend, SEMICON Singapore is also a great opportunity to see market front-end equipment and materials. 38% of the attendees are from IDMs and foundries, twice that of outsourced test and assembly firms. Attendees interest in wafer processing products is comparable to other SEMICONs and Singapore attendees don’t attend any other show. Like all SEMICONs, Singapore serves a huge regional market of buyers and specifiers virtually unreachable by other medium.

If you need more information on SEMICON Singapore or would like to meet at the show, please let know.

SMECS- Sales and Marketing Executive Council

I had the honor of going before the Sales and Marketing Executive Committee (SMECS) last week and presenting our plans and programs for SEMICON West. SMECS is a special interest group of SEMI that represents sales and marketing leaders in North America. They organize our highly successful Silicon Valley Lunch Forums and have been the source for many SEMI policies and programs such as the Strategic Business Conference, the TIS Award and the Bob Graham Award for marketing excellence in the industry.

SMECS is comprised of a fascinating collection of industry veterans and new executives. Some of their members were intimately involved in the birth of the industry and have had ringside seat at every major milestone for the past 20 years. Other members are newer to the industry and looking to make their own mark on the business. Together, they possess a wide spectrum of expectations for what an association and an event should be doing to advance their interests. As a sales and marketing group, they have strong interests and strong opinions on SEMICON West. I was looking forward to the meeting because I am proud of how we manage the show and wanted to give them some insights into the level of effort and the degree of sophistication we take in executing the event. I also urgently need to take advantage of the knowledge, contacts and experience they can provide to help make West a stronger show (and SEMI a better organization).

I gave them a historical overview of the show and presented key show facts on industry segments, attendee attitudes and opinions, and exhibitor satisfaction data. I told them how we are managing the show according to this data, and how we have broken the show into different segments so we can better target attendee and exhibitor needs. I think they were satisfied with our approach to show management, but it wasn’t a love fest. They are a diverse and opinionated group with strong opinions and valuable perspectives.

Among the issues that some were most concerned with was the elimination of the TIS Award (as mentioned, a SMEC developed program) and its replacement by the Best of West Award. I explained that I felt that unfortunately TIS never achieved widespread visibility, recognition and value for either exhibitors or attendees. I also explained that the objectives of TIS were perhaps not consistent with exhibitor, attendee or member priorities for a technology award program. The TIS Committee and SEMI tried, but it just never caught on. We hope that the more open Best of Award achieves greater prominence and better helps our members and attendee interests in seeing West remain the premier new product launch venue in the industry.

An important outcome of the meeting was the preliminary agreement to utilize SMECS in the planning design of SEMICON West in the critical August-September time frame (right after 07 West, when we set meaningful strategic objectives for 2008). I’m looking forward to working closer with SMECs to ensure the finest possible event for attendees and exhibitors and members.

Join SMECS
If you are in the sales and marketing position for a SEMI member company, you can gain valuable contacts and influence over SEMI programs by joining SMECS. For additional information, contact:

SMECS Committee Membership Contact Information
Collin Luttringer, Membership Chair
KLA-Tencor
P: 408 875-0603
collin.luttringer@kla-tencor.com

Cai Guo Qiang Performance Art

I was in New York last week and was fortunate to see the Cai Guo Qiang exhibit at the Guggenheim. For his work, Cai draws on a wide variety of materials, mediums and traditions—elements of feng shui, Chinese medicine and philosophy, images of dragons and tigers, and gunpowder, lots of gunpowder. Since September 11th he has begun using explosives both as metaphor and material. His explosive works, like Black Rainbow, become momentary, elusive demonstrations of alchemy and violence. His also uses gun powder residue as a medium for "painting". He will be the creeative director for the opening ceremonies at the Beijing Summer Olympics.

I share it with you here because it reminds me of the overwhelming power of human imagination. This gift can be used by artists and activists like Cai, and it can be used in business. We sometimes forget how powerful provacative imagination can be in business. We forget that humans make decisions with two halves of a complex brain. We forget we are hard wired for emotion and beauty. We underutilize art and underestimate its force to change opinion and open the mind to new ideas.

Trade shows managers are in the ideal position to utilize three dimensional art to transmit business-related messages. The best trade show exhibits are art, "made with the intention of stimulating the human senses as well as the human mind, by transmitting emotions and/or ideas". What better place to source inspiration for your next business project than from artists like Cai?

Cutting Marketing Budgets Are Not the Way to Manage A Recession

At the SEMI Industry Strategy Symposium (ISS), held in Half Moon Bay, California, Stephen Newberry, president and CEO of Lam Research, discussed the state of the industry and today’s perplexing financial results that can be best described as profitless prosperity. In discussing causes of the problem, Newberry said, “Everybody is pursuing cost as solution…in a race to the bottom.” In presenting historical and segment financial results, he concluded, “Clearly cost is not the significant factor relative to generating operating profit.”

While Newberry was speaking about chip makers, I would argue that cost reduction is also not the solution to equipment and materials makers current financial challenges. In a recession, market share gainers are invariably the last to cut the budgets that deliver and communicate their winning differentiation. Market leaders create a winning future by understanding what their customers want, meeting those needs through product and service development, and effectively communicating their differentiation.

Communications is a critical part of the formula: you can’t “just build it and they will come.”. Customers need to know, understand and value the benefits of your product and services. There are a thousand differentiating variables for customers to focus on; they may choose to concentrate on those which give you an advantage or your competitors. Its not always rational, or fair, and its clearly not always about who “has the best technology.”

In a recession, companies that have a clear understanding of their competitive advantage—and have confidence in it—gain share and come up on the upturn stronger and more profitable than those that simply manage costs. These are the companies that see marketing and communications as a necessary instrument of differentiation, not as a luxury only affordable during good times.

After 30 years of SEMICONs, we have seen upturns and downturns come and go from a unique perspective. We see trade show budgets that rise with confidence and creativity when the market is simply making capacity buys, and shrink when buyers are making strategic decisions about partners and sole sourcing. We see successful companies communicate confidently and effectively with the market when their competitive advantage can best be leveraged, not just when it is more financially amenable.

SEMICON China 2008

Why all the Posts?

Because in China I couldn't access my blog.  Maybe it had something to do with the problems in T*****?

Its Different with SEMI

If you think there's no difference between a private organizer and an industry association in producing trade shows, consider the following programs recently held at SEMICON China:

• PV & MEMS Technology Seminar
  
• Silicon Manufacturers Group 
• Equipment and Spare Parts Localization Meeting
• Used Equipment Forum
• PV Technology Conference
• Export Controls and Customs Workshop
• Regional EHS Meeting
• Dalian Semiconductor Base Promotion
• SEMI/GSA Joint Promotion Meeting

In addition to the above meetings, workshops and forums, much of the opening ceremonies, executive luncheons, hospitality events and other get-togethers were conducted with the point of advancing industry's interests. Maybe none of these meetings would have been held without the support of the equipment and materials industry association. SEMICONS are not just about selling booths, they are about serving the industry.

The Green Supply Chain

Just in time for my trip to FPD China 2008 and SEMICON China, a devastating article about the polysilicon industry in China appeared in the Washington Post last week. In a major feature, the Post reported:

“In China, polysilicon plants are the new dot-coms. Flush with venture capital and with generous grants and low-interest loans from a central government touting its efforts to seek clean energy alternatives, more than 20 Chinese companies are starting polysilicon manufacturing plants. The combined capacity of these new factories is estimated at 80,000 to 100,000 tons -- more than double the 40,000 tons produced in the entire world today.
(But) solar plants in China have not installed technology to prevent pollutants from getting into the environment or have not brought those systems fully online, industry sources say.”

Whether or not the accusations in the story are accurate, or widespread, SEMI has a huge responsibility to our members and society to being positive a force in advancing environmental responsibility and Best Practices in the industries we serve. Membership in SEMI should come with both responsibilities and benefits, but this is difficult to assure and enforce. Many of the benefits of membership, such as industry standards and public policy benefits are not exclusive to members--everyone benefits. Even in trade shows, non-exhibitors and non-members benefit from the industry congregation by setting up meetings in hotel rooms, even though they have contributed nothing to the incentives that bring customers, industry experts and other leaders to the venue.

SEMI is not overly concerned with restricting benefits to dues-paying members and exhibitors. We do, however, struggle with assigning responsibilities to members as part our association mission. Many associations require the signing of a code of conduct or principles to be members. Very often, these associations are established exclusively to address environmental and other public policy issues; common agreement on certain industry practices is the raison d'tre of the organization.

At SEMI, we encourage and support our member’s environmental responsibilities in a separate vehicle called Global Care. Members of Global Care have agreed to support important sustainability objectives. In dealing with the emerging polysilicon businesses in China, and elsewhere, we will be using both SEMI membership and Global Care to influence environmental practices. By becoming a SEMI member, new China companies become part of global network of suppliers that implicitly agree to a responsible code of conduct. By joining Global Care, members explicitly agree to a substantive commitment to sustainability practices. SEMI is committed to bringing emerging China companies into the global marketplace and into our membership so we can assure greater assurance to all members, and all parts of society, that we are leaving the earth a better place than when we found it.

FPD China 2008

Marketing in a Recession

Some marketers in the semiconductor industry are facing reduced budgets due to the current industry downturn. For many companies, it’s the last thing they should do.
What does history and research say about marketing during recession?

The 1990-91 recession lasted eight months with unemployment eventually peaking at 7.8%, 50% higher than the current rate. Home prices in the top 10 metropolitan areas fell 8.3% during the downturn and the stock market dropped 21%.

It was during this time that Intel launched “Intel Inside” and spent $100 million on a risky, untried marketing campaign. In 1992, the first year of "Intel Inside" campaign, worldwide sales rose 63%.

According to the February 4th issue of Advertising Age, consumer product giants P&G, Colgate-Palmolive, Kraft Foods, and Kellogg are all boosting (or have at least maintained) their marketing budgets. This even as they are cutting costs elsewhere due to the slowing economy.

For well-positioned companies, an economic recession should not prompt marketing cutbacks, but rather an aggressive increase in marketing spending to achieve superior business performance according to recent research by professors at Penn State's Smeal College of Business. Other studies have also confirmed that aggressive marketing during an economic downturn can result in greater market share gains than spending increases in a growing economy. The Penn State study finds that firms entering a recession with a pre-established strategic emphasis on marketing; an entrepreneurial culture; and a sufficient reserve of under-utilized workers, cash, and spare production capacity are best positioned to approach recessions as opportunities to strengthen their competitive advantage.

"Proactive marketing includes both the sensing of the existence of the opportunity (a tough hill and fatigued opponents) and an aggressive response (possessing the necessary strength or nerve) to the opportunity," say the researchers.

"Those firms with a strategic emphasis on marketing have already put in place the programs that help them derive value from their marketing activities (e.g., well-recognized brands, differentiated products, targeted communications, good support and service, etc.)," said the authors.

This was a fun program to help develop. One of the great joys of SEMI is working with people who are smarter and more accomplished than you.

SEMICON West has always been the premier venue to see the latest innovations in the industry and we needed an award that celebrated that distinction…we needed an award that would live throughout history, become milestones, signposts to remember.

The inaugural Best of West Award is intended to recognize our industry’s outstanding engineering and scientific achievements, important new products and amazing solutions.
We’ve just announced it to exhibitors and we’re open for submissions. We’re especially excited about the judges panel: independent, diverse, covering most segments, academia, distinguished customers, all the key journalists. Many of the journalists also have award programs so I am especially thankful for their support.

• Dr. Robert, Doering, Senior Fellow in Silicon Technology Development, Texas Instruments
• Bernard Meyerson, IBM Fellow, vice president and chief technologist, Systems & Technology Group, IBM
• Godfrey Mungal, Dean, School of Engineering, Santa Clara University
• Ann Stephora Mutschler, Senior Editor, Electronic News
• Mark Osborne, Editor in Chief, Semiconductor FabTech
• David Ridsdale, Editor in Chief, EuroAsia Semiconductor
• Pete Singer, Editor-in-Chief, Semiconductor International
• Ed Korczynski, Sr. Technical Editor, Solid State Technology
• Francoise von Trapp, Managing Editor, Advanced Packaging
• Rick Nelson, Chief Editor, Test & Measurement World
• Marc David Levenson, Editor-in-Chief, Microlithography World
• Dr. David W. Parent Associate Professor, San Jose State University.

Diversification

With semiconductor capex spending looking bleak for the year, I hope you’re one of the many SEMI members also serving the flat panel display (FPD) industry.

According to DisplaySearch, sales of equipment used to manufacture TFT-LCDs will surge 40% to over $11 billion in 2008, and will likely remain at a similar level through 2009. TFT fab utilization increased from a sickly 85.4% at the beginning of last year to a robust 95.7% as the year ended, the highest level recorded. In response, the top five LCD makers—Samsung, AUO, LPL, CMO and Sharp—are all expecting to increase spending through 2008 and well into 2009.

Apart from the added growth that new markets offer, diversification can help balance revenue streams and minimize impact of the boom and bust cycles affecting any one segment.

For many SEMI members, PV offers the same diversification opportunity that FPD offers. Certainly the polysilicon suppliers have benefited from the emergence of PV the last few years, but many equipment suppliers have seen a large bump in sales from PV applications as well. The number of PECVD, sputtering, furnaces, laser scribers, screen printing, and other tools targeted for PV have doubled in the last two years and will likely double again by 2011.

Another industry that is providing SEMI members with diversification opportunities is solid state lighting. Revenues from discrete LED devices are expected to increase by an impressive 22% cumulative average growth rate (CAGR) between 2005 and 2010, according to a new five-year forecast from IC Insights of Scottsdale, Arizona. Paving the way for this revenue growth is an intensifying race to develop and mass-produce highly luminous white LEDs for indoor solid-state lighting systems. Total unit shipments of LED devices will climb to about 64 billion in 2010, up from 27.4 billion in 2005. That’s gonna require a whole lot of equipment and materials.

Helping our members diversify into new markets is a key challenge for SEMI. Typically, we try to highlight emerging markets at one of executive conferences, such as ISS or SBC. Sometimes we will create a dedicated event to serve our members such as FPD China or the PV Fab Managers Forum. Another common approach to helping our members diversify include partnership events such as FPD International and Intersolar North America. Our market research, standards, EHS, and public policy groups within SEMI also search for ways to enhance new market opportunities.

Picking the right new market, and using our limited time, energy and resources to help members profit from it is one of the most difficult and challenging responsibilities we have at SEMI. If you know of an emerging market that SEMI can help accelerate on behalf of our members, please let us know. Facing a bleak year in capex spending for semiconductors, a little diversification is something we all could do a little more of.

Nice Little PV Video

I'm sure I can find a place to use this nice little video on PV.