Reporter's notebook - News - Semicon West

Electronic News, July 29, 2002 by Jeff Chappell

Gee, my feet don't hurt, my fingers aren't cramped, no one is plying me with free booze, and I actually slept in until 9 a.m.

Semicon West must finally be over. Six days, six notebooks and dozens of business cards later, it's hard to believe it.

Needless to say, covering both the front- and backend portions of the show, I'm a little shell-shocked. It seems strange that I'm suddenly not furiously scribbling notes with one hand while someone shoves a press kit into the other. And getting a full night's sleep- what an odd concept. But I digress.

Although it seemed busier than last year, Semicon West demonstrated that things are, needless to say, still rough out there.

How do I know this? Well, for one thing, at nearly every booth I visited, before I could ask any questions, the questions were fired off at me. What are you hearing? What do you see? What are other people saying? What's your impression of the show? Will you please pat me on the head and tell me everything is going to be all right and that we'll live happily ever after like they promised back in 2000?

OK, I made up that last one, but I know a few of you out there were thinking that. I wish I could tap my laptop three times, flip the pages of my notebook and make it all better, or provide some keen insight that all the analysts and industry veterans have missed.

All I can offer is the cliche wisdom of my high-school football coach, who presided over numerous demoralized teams. Suck it up. Tough it out. No pain, no gain. Give 110 percent. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. If you don't maintain a strong cash position and invest in R&D during the downturn, you'll get your butts kicked in the fourth quarter. I made up that last one, too, but you get the idea.

Wall StreetAttends Parallel Universe Semicon

I'll be curious to see the numbers from SEMI when they come out, because to me, both parts of the show seemed busier than last year, and that was the consensus among the companies I visited.

Granted, you have to take some of that with a grain of salt and chalk it up to marketing spin. On one occasion during the show, I had the chance to talk to a marcom-type person and later speak with the same company's CEO. The former said booth traffic was way up; the latter said it seemed slow.

And there were a few companies out there that felt the show was downright quiet. Still, during all six days of the show I had to duck and weave to get around the people in the aisles as I ran from booth meeting to analyst event to booth meeting to panel discussion. Last year, I could sprint down the aisles, most of the time unobstructed.

Of course, there was no buying going on, and that's not what trade shows are really about anymore, at least here in this industry. But there did seem to be a lot of tire kicking-make that FOUP or SMIF kicking--going on, as chipmakers are trying to prepare for the long lost upturn. But other than necessary technology buys, no one has the guts to loosen the purse strings and sign the purchase orders just yet.

What I didn't see or hear about is the wilder claims from some of the Wall Street analysts at the show. It was not uncommon for me to be checking my e-mail at the end of the day and see research notes from analysts at the show, and wonder, "Are they at the same Semicon I'm at?" I tried to find someone who would tell me, yes, orders fell off the cliff in June, and the recovery is relapsing. But the story was pretty consistent wherever I went. Orders are flattening out in the summer quarter--like they do every year--and everyone is nervous thanks to Wall Street and won't offer any guidance, but no one could provide me with evidence that the semiconductor industry is completely tanking ala Wall Street.

Regardless, I'm still keeping my money in an old sock underneath my mattress.

AS for the most interesting technological discussion at Semicon West, my vote goes to gate dielectrics. A panel discussion that included Genus, ASMI and ASML--all contentious competitors in the emerging market for atomic layer deposition--proved remarkably polite. They all agreed that unless a lot of collaboration and R&D takes place to find a successor to silicon oxide, it will be the transistor, not lithography, that puts the kibosh on Moore's Law.