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TAP TIMES -4- AUGUST 2022

SEMICON West (from 3)
of the event. And chip makers brought

show between San Francisco and San what seemed like a gaggle of fab-tool buy-
Jose, keeping backend equipment vendors ers and high-level deal makers in those
in the latter venue. days.”
“Today, though the show remains the place
Reunification announced to be for many vendors, Novellus, Varian,
In 2005, however, SEMI announced the and a few other suppliers have stopped
show would “reunify” into the single San exhibiting at the event for cost reasons,”
Francisco venue that year. The EE TIMES story adds.

Consolidation into a single venue location The show climate has changed
became possible when exhibit and meeting “Simply put, the business-oriented cli-
facilities were expanded at the Moscone mate of SEMICON West has changed — if
Center, SEMI reported. not diminished. Procurement deals are
far between at the
show, while the past
downturn has drasti-
cally reduced travel
budgets.

“As a result, fewer
equipment buyers at-
tend the event, accord-
ing to analysts.”

Now, 18 years later
with SEMICON West
52 years old, much
of those comments
are still relevant — in
spades.

Lacking excitement
This once exceptional,
venerated meeting
This is a view looking west down Market Street, about two miles from Moscone, circa 1920.
place for a large part
“The place to do business” of semiconductor tool buyers has become
“In the 1970s and 1980s, SEMICON West an industry afterthought to many.
was the place to do business,” Mark LaPe-
dus and Peter Clarke reported in the May For the past several years, SEMICON West
5, 2004 issue of EE TIMES. has failed to display the joie de vivre that

once made us look forward to the event.
“Before the age of e-mail, the Internet,
and business-to-business marketing, chip What happened? As the EE TIMES article
makers were known to cut huge procure- noted, today companies have many ways
ment deals with vendors in the glory days page 6