Taking the Measure

November 20, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

What’s the fate of trade shows given the state of the economy and the cost and inconvenience of travel? Crowds in the hallways and booths at Vision 2008 two weeks ago and Electronica last week suggested to me that trade show interest, at least in Germany, remains high. A statement released by Messe München International (MMI)today confirms that my impression of Electronica, at least: “Electronica 2008 attendance was remarkably stable despite the difficult financial situation facing many exhibitors and attendees. The well-known trade fair attracted around 2800 exhibitors, 58% of whom came from abroad, and around 72,000 attendees. These numbers are essentially unchanged from electronica 2006.”

MMI adds that the number of attendees from Central and Eastern Europe, Taiwa...Read More

November 10, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (4)

MUNICH, GERMANY. Who cares about semiconductors? Maybe only the trade press and its readers, suggested Brian L. Halla, chairman and CEO of National Semiconductor, at a press conference today on the eve of Electronica. Politicians don’t seem to care, he said, recounting a visit to Washington with Intel Chairman Craig R. Barrett on behalf of the SIA. He said the two pushed for expansion of the H-1B visa program and for more support for research, including full funding of the America Competes act, mostly to no avail. The semiconductor industry ranks fifth or sixth, he said he was told by ...Read More

October 30, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

Driven by economic forces, five ATE makers came together yesterday under the CAST banner in an effort to foster precompetitive collaboration. Representatives of the nine companies supporting the CAST initiative so far—Advantest, Amkor, Infineon, Intel, LTX-Credence, Qualcomm, Roos Instruments, Teradyne, and Verigy—took the stage at the International Test Conference yesterday to discuss their reasons for forming CAST, which stands for "Collaborative Alliance for Semiconductor Test."

Debbora Ahlgren, VP and chief marketing officer of Verigy and co-chair of the CAST planning group, said, “The industry has got to point where quite frankly we need to work together to achieve greater efficiency, so what we’ve done is pull together a foundational team,” in...Read More

October 22, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

I’ve commented previously that an engineering career isn’t an easy sell to students in the US, and I applaud the efforts of organizations that are trying to instill an interest in technology in young people. Those initiatives range from the Lego WeDo platform, which adapts National Instruments’ LabView graphical design environment for the grade-school set, to the US Department of Energy’s EcoCar competition, which provides computer-modeling and hands-on experience for future automotive engineers. Addressing age groups in between is the FIRST program, which brings the excitement of sporting even...Read More

October 21, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

Two-dimensional semiconductor process technology has had a successful 50 year history since Gordon Moore designed the first commercial planar transistor. And there is no end in sight, as firms such as ASML continue to develop innovative photolithography equipment and research organizations like IMEC focus on sub-32-nm process technologies. Nevertheless, 3D semiconductor structures are emerging that serve a variety of application areas, and in fact older-generation 2D lithographic equipment can often be adapted to form 3D structures.

Presenters at research review meetings held last week at ASML in Veldhoven, the Netherlands, and at IMEC in Leuven, Belgium, discussed innovations in 2D and 3D technologies. For...Read More