A new event for a ‘new’ industry
02/01/2005
There’s lots of discussion these days about how technological complexity and global market forces have combined to apply continuous and heavy pressure on the profit margins of semiconductor manufacturers. Many of the “old” ways of developing technology and doing business in this industry simply won’t get the job done anymore.
The technical and market forces that have changed the industry’s economics include the migration of end products toward consumer markets, the rapidly rising cost of building new manufacturing capacity, increasing device integration, the effect of new disruptive technologies on manufacturing, the entrance of players from low-cost regions of the world, and the emergence of large markets — especially China.
The same advances in semiconductor manufacturing technology that have kept the industry on track with Moore’s Law have brought their own economic challenges. For example, through most of the industry’s history, new materials required for technological advance generally were purified versions of existing chemicals. This is no longer the case. Today and in the future, many new materials must be developed from scratch, placing a much more severe economic burden on materials suppliers. And integrating new material sets is difficult and costly.
From the equipment view, development costs for new tools have skyrocketed at exactly the same time that equipment suppliers have less money to spend on product development due to shrinking margins, the need to serve both 200mm and 300mm manufacturing, and other factors. And advanced process control systems are now essential to success in leading-edge manufacturing.
Yes, it’s certainly a scary economic climate for the global semiconductor manufacturers but, as I have pointed out before, the same climate has been faced and overcome by manufacturers in other industries. One of the key things that’s needed in such cost-conscious times is close collaboration throughout the semiconductor supply chain, especially between chipmakers and their equipment and material suppliers.
The industry has increased its level of collaboration very quickly and quite impressively. Technology advances as a result of joint development are commonplace today. Chipmakers work with each other at a level of collaboration that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. Consortia such as Sematech, IMEC, and Japan’s Selete have become engines that drive continuous progress. And new collaborative models such as Albany NanoTech are bringing together academia, industry, and government to jointly fund development and move technology forward.
PennWell’s Advanced Technology Division, which publishes Solid State Technology and our newsweekly WaferNews, has taken notice of these trends and changes and will launch a new type of invitation-only semiconductor industry event that will not only help spur collaboration between chipmakers and their suppliers, but also provide attendees with a conference track focused squarely on the industry’s new economic challenges. Both SST Editorial Director Bob Haavind and I serve on the Advisory Board for this conference, and I can confidently say that the content of the conference segment of The ConFab will address these economic challenges more broadly and deeply than any other semiconductor industry conference.
At The ConFab in Las Vegas in May, high-level speakers from chipmakers and suppliers from around the world will give presentations on the economic issues surrounding next-generation lithography and the infrastructure needed to implement NGL; the benefits of agile fabs; advanced process control; benefits and costs of integrated metrology; and several other topics vital to success in semiconductor manufacturing.
The essence of The ConFab is prescheduled, intimate meetings between chipmakers and their suppliers. These meetings are meant to facilitate business decision-making, strengthen alliances, and spur future collaborative efforts.
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For more event or registration information on The ConFab, visit www.theconfab.com or call Luba Hrynyk at 603/891-9162.
Kevin Fitzgerald
Editor-in-Chief