Albany Symposium On Global Semiconductor Issues Expands Perspectives On A Critical World Industry

Market Wire, 20050229

John R. Frank of M W Zander, a key corporate player in the construction of wafer fab facilities, discussed the economics and production issues that must be considered by any chip manufacturer contemplating the construction of a 300-mm fab. Frank reviewed the current worldwide status of 300-mm fab projects and looked at potential areas of savings as the industry experiences the 300-mm learning curve.

In the area of emerging technology, Miwako Waga, Associate Director of the Asian Technology Information Program, provided an informative overview of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and nanotechnology R&D and commercialization efforts in Korea, Japan, Taiwan, China and Hong Kong, and Singapore. Nanotechnology will figure significantly over the next few decades in IT, telecommunications, biomedical and life science technology advances, automotive technology, and robotics. Potential markets, depending on definition, could range from 20 to more than 50 billion dollars over the next 15 years.

Mitchell Weiss of Billerica Mass.-based PRI Automation, offered a thought provoking look at traditional semiconductor manufacturing costs. Noting that Moore's law-type (exponential) increases in chip functionality and decreases in cost have been accompanied by a corresponding increase in the cost of building semiconductor chip factories, Weiss stated that the $200 billion spent by the industry in new capacity over the last five years has produced only $50 billion in new revenues. His thesis: a change is required in the way that semiconductor manufacturing capacity is capitalized and utilized. He discussed various means of studying, reducing, and better utilizing the fixed cost components of wafer manufacturing.

The general conclusions reached at the symposium were that because the semiconductor industry is the keystone for expanding technologies of the new century, and because the growth of these technologies appears immutable, semiconductor recovery is inevitable. Can economic forecasting for this industry be improved? Probably. Will various semiconductor manufacturing models be changed? Likely. Will the semiconductor industry model be modified? Almost certainly. Will the role of the industry in the greater global economy require further definition and monitoring? Absolutely. Some of these topics will almost certainly be revisited in an expanded Second Annual Albany Symposium on Global Semiconductor Issues scheduled for Sept 11-13, 2002.

On a closing note, the Organizing Committee of the Albany Symposium on Global Semiconductor Issues and the Symposium's host organizations, Albany NanoTech and the New York Capital Region Center for Economic Growth, expressed their sincere sympathy to Symposium attendees and all those everywhere who suffered personal losses in the horrendous Sept 11 attack on America.