SI's Take on Semicon West

As expected, Moscone West was hopping this year more than I’ve ever seen it. As I mentioned in my last post about Intersolar, SEMI has made attempts in the past to get people to venture out of the North and South halls, but the beer gardens and oompah bands nonetheless left the packaging suppliers in the West feeling a bit unloved. This year was different. The solar pull was just too strong, and people were coming over in droves.

Perhaps no exhibitor epitomizes this shift better than our industry’s own dominant player, Applied Materials. It was hard to avoid the buzz they created at SEMICON West this year. Even sitting at the Lithography Breakfast Forum Wednesday morning, I heard a lot of, “Have you seen Applied’s booth this year?” One person said, “Anyone who didn’t know what was going on might look at that wall and wonder what the heck it was about.”

Did you see the wall? Well, if you don’t know what I’m talking about, here you go:

If you’ve ever seen Applied’s booth in the South Hall before, you know that it’s usually well equipped with the latest machines, people swarming to get their chance to take a gander. This year, there was nary a soul in that space – except the one person manning the front desk, presumably telling people that Applied had plenty of equipment to see in a new setup over at the Metreon on Fourth Street. I myself didn’t make it over there, although I heard that it wasn’t particularly well populated either.

So where was everybody? In the West Hall — Level 3, to be exact. When I had breakfast with a South Hall exhibitor this morning, they mentioned a bit of disappointment at the traffic in the South Hall on Wednesday — usually the peak traffic day for SEMICON West. My guess was that there was enough talk on Tuesday about the Intersolar exhibit going on over in the West Hall that anybody who hadn’t made it over there the first day of the show found their way there by Wednesday. I had had several appointments over there on Tuesday, but hadn’t really had a chance to just mill around. So I made my way back over there this morning to have a better look.

When I got up to the third level, I was a bit surprised by the relative lack of attendance at Intersolar. But it was Thursday, after all, and a lot of people start heading back early, so maybe everything had died down by then. Nope. I found everybody when I got to the back of the hall:

Yeah, there’s just no escaping the solar pull. It’s an awful lot of attention for Applied Materials — arguably more than they deserve. But the fact is that there’s solar excitement coursing all through the semiconductor industry. There was hardly a company I met with this week who didn’t have at least one toe dipped into the photovoltaic water. The excitement and energy of those involved is like the semiconductor industry was 15-20 years ago — before we became so “mature.” People like going to work each day. They’re feeling good about not only their technical accomplishments but also the thought that they’re perhaps doing something good for Mother Earth along the way. Perhaps it’s the rampant use of sun icons in company logos, but the West Hall had a bright, cheerful feel to it that I haven’t seen at SEMICON West in a while.