Steve DeCollibus, Managing Editor, Semiconductor Packaging News

The show opening today was overshadowed by SEMI’s announcement yesterday that they anticipate that global semiconductor equipment sales will fall 20% in 2008. The companies we spent time with yesterday seemed to contradict that announcement, they all shared very positive sales so far in 2008, while many were pensive regarding the rest of the year they had seen no drop off in business.

You will notice today’s top story highlights Intel’s very positive results with a 25% increase in profit. Bottom line, noone knows nor can they currently predict what impact the economic tsunami we are currently experiencing will have on the electronics market. I walked past the Apple Store on my way to the show this morning and the line to buy iphones had already stretched around a city block before the store had opened. Yesterday afternoon it did this and doubled back on itself.

10:00 rush as exhibits open on Tuesday.

At yesterdays market symposium, Jim Clifford, Senior VP and General Manager of Qualcom CDMA Technologies added fuel to the premise that the consumer and mobile electronics markets were the new industry drivers. Another driver he noted was the move to light manufacturing that is being driven by the IDM’s to reduce capital investments and lower manufacturing costs.

Without question, change is ahead as the industry trims sail and readies itself for what another speaker at the symposium — Dean Freeman, Research Vice President of Gartner Inc. — described 2008 as the fourth worst downturn since 1982.

Two companies we spoke to, Dage and Zestron were both excited about the show. Sylvain Chamoussett, Technical Marketing Manager, said Zestron was at SEMI for the first time because they wanted to elevate their profile in this market, where they are seeing a lot of work coming from companies involved in prototyping packages that required new cleaning technologies. These new packages were driving innovation at their company.

Paul Walter, Managing Director at Dage, the electronics and semiconductor focused test and inspection group, spoke to us about the importance of innovation as it relates to customer defined needs. The 33 person R&D group at Dage creates innovation that is driven by direct customer input, which leads to solutions that solve customer issues before they become problems.

Doug Dixon at Henkel Technologies Electronics Group talked about the developing synergies and merging of cultures that is going on at Henkel since their acquisition in April of the Adhesives and Electronics Materials business that were formerly owned by National Starch. He said things were going well, an indication being our top Industry Story today announcing the formation of the executive team that will lead the Electronics group.

We met with Steven Buerki from Palomar MicroElectronics in Carlsbad, CA and discussed their subcontract assembly and prototype production business. Steve said they have been growing this assembly business inside of Palomar Technologies as many companies require quick turn high precision assemblies which typical EMS companies are reluctant to bid and cannot meet the stringent accuracy or delivery requirements.

Also met with Greg Wood, VP sales of Asymtek who demonstrated their expanding machine platforms and jetting technology for a wide range of semiconductor applications. Asymtek continues to grow through these difficult economic times and is on target to have its best year in the company’s 25 year history.

An interesting first day, a little slow for some, and a trend towards smaller informational booths. We will continue coverage today and Thursday with a wrap up to follow on Friday.