Trend-Spotting Time in California

Stanley T. Myers, President Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) -- Semiconductor International, 7/1/1999

SEMICON West is upon us and for everyone involved -- exhibitors, attendees, journalists, market researchers and SEMI staff -- that means a week of hard work that somehow always leaves us exhausted but exhilarated. This event, coming at mid-year and being the favored venue for launching new technology, provides a great opportunity for taking the pulse of the industry.

This year will be particularly important as we look for indications whether the industry's apparent upturn is the start of a new long-term growth cycle or merely a short-term improvement. Earlier in the year the majority of equipment orders made by semiconductor companies were technology buys. In recent months, however, a number of major purchases have been driven by capacity expansion, with Taiwan leading the way in both semiconductor and flat panel display equipment.

SEMICON West 99 is an appropriate time to take stock, being the final California show of the century. On the technology side, a number of major announcements of new equipment generations can be expected in San Francisco as exhibitors jockey for position as the leading providers of solutions to semiconductor industry wafer fab challenges in the new millennium. Looking back over this decade, one is immediately struck by the phenomenal shrinking of linewidths in device technology, which has been possible only because of the developments by SEMI members and will, no doubt, continue to set the pace this year. Equally impressive is the decade-long improvement in manufacturing productivity, also enabled by our industry. Over time, in fact, I believe we will come to characterize the 1990s as the decade of productivity and yield improvements.

New Focus on Back-End

Don't look for all the exciting new products at SEMICON West to be in wafer fab equipment. We have rapidly come to a point where many of the most critical requirements of the semiconductor industry technology roadmap are in the area of test, assembly and packaging.

Test equipment manufacturers are facing several challenges today, one of the greatest of which is customers' pressure to lower the cost of semiconductor testing. A recent survey of some SEMI test equipment members indicated cost is a major factor they are now addressing, but it also revealed they are being pressed to offer a larger variety of machines and platforms to the customer while also meeting the challenge of testing increasingly more complex circuits.

Similarly, San Jose will be an exciting venue for semiconductor companies in search of new packaging developments. John Jackson, who recently joined SEMI as director of business development/ technology, told me that a paradigm shift is underway in packaging and assembly as shrinking device dimensions and increased input/output requirements challenge conventional packaging techniques. John said many of these trends will be reflected in products introduced in San Jose. Array interconnections, 'packageless' solutions using direct attachment of the chip (DCA) to the substrate, and flip-chip bonding and chip scale packages are among the 'buzzwords' likely to be heard up and down the aisles.

Ahead: The Decade of Outsourcing

If the '90s have been the decade of productivity improvement, I believe the next 10 years will be remembered in our industry history books as 'The Decade of Outsourcing.' In the next few years you will see a growing number of device producers outsourcing the actual production of some or all of their product designs. This will bring about significant changes in the way our members market their products. At the same time, many of our members will be asked to take responsibility for entire process steps performed on their equipment. That will create another major change in the rules of business for our industry, and that move already is underway. It may be a less obvious trend at the show this month, but I assure you, its influence will be felt.

So out of all this, what can you expect to see this year at SEMICON West 99? I believe you will see the world's most dynamic industry reinventing itself -- again.

Expanding SEMI's Packaging Focus

SEMI recognizes the need for greater focus on assembly and packaging issues. It is a primary reason for bringing John Jackson on board. Chip scale packages (CSPs) offer a solution to many packaging challenges by minimizing the substrate interconnection area to that approaching that of the die, while allowing standardized footprints for substrate connection. While CSPs will be talked about at SEMICON West, there will be even greater focus on them at SEMI's Chip Scale International (CSI) Exposition and Conference to be held Sept. 13-16 at the San Jose Convention Center.