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Musings from Half Moon Bay: Why is the materials forecast missing from ISS? |
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Jan 08, 2007 at 09:34 PM |
One thing missing from the ISS agenda this year is the annual materials forecast provided by SEMI.
I know the Strategic Materials Conference (SMC) tag-teams the symposium later in the week, but I sorely miss the straight silicon market poop, gases and chemicals numbers, photomask prognostications, and the like. Although there's a mostly quality agenda at ISS, the absence of presentation(s) from Dan Tracy or one of the other materials mavens that carry on the Dan Rose tradition of materials market-research excellence rubs me the wrong way.
If anything, the chip, equipment, and investment folks need to hear the good/bad news (good this year, isn't it?) from the materials side more than ever. It goes against the prime directive of tool and materials company cooperation that has been a mantra for many in the biz.
Here's my message to SEMI's honchos and committee know-it-alls-locked-in-their-silos: By ghettoizing the materials sector in the SMC, you do a disservice to those who want a clearer view of the big picture: How does one come up with collaborative strategies for the survival and prosperity of the semi manufacturing supply chain as half-pitches diminish to the atomic level and device structures go three-dimensional, banking on new materials/process integration as a sine qua non for pushing Moore's Law to its physical limits?
Heck, I'd at least like to know if there will be enough raw polysilicon to go around for the wafer-hungry chipmakers, MEMS folks, and solar-cell manufacturers.
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