Semiconductor Industry’s Summer of Love: Semicon West

Based on the good news coming from SEMI, the semiconductor equipment manufacturing industry association, Semicon West, scheduled for July 12-14 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, and at the San Jose Convention Center July 14-16, is likely to be quite a love-fest for the industry. According to SEMI, North American-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment booked nearly $1.6 billion in orders in April, up some 111% from the same period a year earlier.

The organization also touted a very healthy book-to-bill ratio of 1.14, meaning that for every $114 worth of new orders booked for April, $100 was billed during the same period. "The strength in bookings for new semiconductor manufacturing equipment in early 2004," said Stanley T. Meyers, SEMI’s CEO and president, "is consistent with both announced capital spending plans and high capacity-utilization levels."

Good news, indeed, and something that’s likely to be music to attendees’ ears at the organization’s annual conference and show. According to SEMI, some 1,500 companies are planning to descend on the two locations to exhibit in a forum that SEMI says integrates exhibits, education, and information exchange around four focused themes: technology, manufacturing, supply chain and markets.

Show organizers have spread the conference over two locations to better focus and cover two broad industry categories: The first half, July 12-14, is focused on wafer processing and the second, July 14-16, is centered on final manufacturing processes. Regardless of the area that interests you most, the conference program is full of production and manufacturing-centric topics. Among those on the agenda that might interest Control Design readers in the manufacturing category:

Industry Gurus Will Speak

The conference has a track record of attracting top industry speakers. Introducing the show’s keynote series "Meet the Industry Masters," opening day of the San Francisco show is Intel’s director of technology strategy, Paolo Gargini. The show’s keynote series continues in San Francisco with daily presentations by Steven Appleton, chairman, president and CEO of Micron, F.C. Tseng, deputy CEO of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Aart De Geus, chairman and CEO of Synopsys. Bruce Freyman, president and COO, Amkor is slated to deliver the opening keynote in San Jose.