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SEMI has taken the right step in introducing a new product awards mechanism for this year’s SEMICON West show, which replaces the past rendition that focused on just innovations from start-ups. The new system means that ‘ANY’ equipment/product/materials etc. company, old and new, can enter the competition. 

This is also a new review process that should prove interesting, as many of my industry peers are on the panel, including yours truly!

Some regular readers may know that new product announcements in the semiconductor supplier arena are on the whole pretty poor. They lack any detailed information and barely give any information that anyone would ever be interested in. My last rant on this can be seen here.

Anyway, the awards are now open to all SEMI members so it will be interesting to see if the required detailed descriptions can be met, and if a wide range of companies participate. This is, of course, something I would like to see, especially from those that regularly fail to provide sufficient information in the product press releases.

Having covered countless products in depth for many years without giving out annual awards for products etc., I thought this type of format would work more independently than most.

However, I wasn’t sure listing the panel of judges was necessarily the right thing to do as it opens us up to underhand tactics such as free trips to exotic locations, nights out at expensive restaurants, free use of corporate jets and Ferraris and a host of other devilish coercive measures.

On that note I urge you all to seek out the entry details over at http://www.semiconwest.org/.

The panel is as follows:

   Bernard Meyerson, IBM fellow, Vice President and Chief Technologist,
      Systems & Technology Group, IBM
   Dr. Robert Doering, Senior Fellow in Silicon Technology Development,
      Texas Instruments
   Godfrey Mungal, Dean, School of Engineering, Santa Clara University
   Dr. David W. Parent, Associate Professor, San Jose State University
   Ann Steffora-Mutschler, Senior Editor, Electronic News
   David Ridsdale, Editor-in-Chief, EuroAsia Semiconductor
   Ed Korczynski, Senior Technical Editor, Solid State Technology
   Francoise von Trapp, Managing Editor, Advanced Packaging
   Marc David Levenson, Editor-in-Chief, Microlithography World
   Mark Osborne, Editor-in-Chief, Semiconductor Fabtech
   Pete Singer, Editor-in-Chief, Semiconductor International
   Rick Nelson, Chief Editor, Test & Measurement World.