SEMICON West Highlights

G. Dan Hutcheson

The Chip Insider®

Summary:

SEMICON West Highlights: Downturn Shock: Zombie-land facial expressions were characteristic of this year’s show. Back in December, few believed us when TechInsights analysts forecasted a 16% drop in WFE…

Applied Materials’ strategic shift: It’s rare to see a new tool introduced at SEMICON West. It’s even more rare to see a major strategic shift. Mike Sullivan kicked off the event saying “Collaboration is key to all the problems we are going to solve” … They were serious…

Hybrid Bonding was the rage at West this year, with Applied Materials and Lam Research coming from the WFE side, while BESI and EVG came from the traditional packaging side. Meanwhile, K&S made a strong pitch for thermocompression bonding based on its lower cost…

Rapidus plans single-wafer processing: A lot of people sneered when Rapidus CEO Koike-san announced this... I think that for as long as I’ve known him, Koike-san has dreamed of single-wafer processing… You don’t win a sailboat race by following the leader. What TSMC did was align to … Koike-san’s dream is based on some pretty simple factory performance math. Wafer fab turnaround times are limited … Hence, it would be inherently more profitable than a conventional foundry, which could offset the cost advantage other parts of Asia have. So you see, it’s not so crazy after all.

Maxims: Distinguish Difficult from Differentiated. It is a common error for technologists to think difficult and differentiated at the same. Technologists are always up for a challenge, but if it’s just difficult, it will be a mistake.

"The only thing we have to fear is...fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance" -Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1933 inaugural address

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