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TAP TIMES August 2022

Volume 13, Number 7

Test, Assembly & Packaging TIMES

San Francisco and SEMICON West: Is it time for a change?

hat old real estate
axiom, “location,
location, location”
can easily be applied
to the choice of San
TFrancisco for a trade
show venue — SEMICON West
for example.

There used to be a lot to recommend San
Francisco as the site for the semiconduc-
tor equipment industry’s premier annual
event. Now, unfortunately, not so much.
If you had been around what’s now Moscone Center in 1937, then
known as the Tenderloin, you might have seen these men loung-
Opinion: Ron Iscoff, Editor ing nearby. (WPA photo)
roniscoff@gmail.com

An unfortunate truth man settlement, however, has been
It’s an unfortunate truth that San Fran- traced back some 3000 years to Native
cisco aka “The City by the Bay” isn’t the Americans.
Grand Dame she was a few years ago.
A fondness for “Frisco”
This is the great city where Enrico Caruso, I have to admit I have a fondness for this
the most revered operatic tenor of his great city, sometimes rudely termed “Fris-
times, performed Carmen at the Mission co.” I was born here, just spitting distance
Opera House a few hours before the ter- from Moscone at Mount Zion hospital,
rible temblor of 1906. which is now part of UCSF Medical Center.

Home to the iconic Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco is truly one of the great
San Francisco, according to many visitors, tourist cities. Pre-pandemic in 2019, the
has had its glitz and glamor replaced with World Atlas ranked it fifth in popularity
a compendium of garbage, including hu- with 3.308 million visitors.
man droppings in the streets and and the
detritis left by homeless encampments. New York was first with 10.288 million
visitors, followed by Miami with 5.211 mil-
In 1769, San Francisco was settled by a lion. The city has been home to SEMICON
Spanish exploratory party led by Don Gas- West since 1996, when it featured front-
par de Portola. That makes the city about end equipment. Initially, SEMI split the
253 years old. Notably, evidence of hu- next page