Ken Cavallaro, Business Manager, Semiconductor Packaging News

Semicon West was busy on Wednesday with thousands of attendees visiting exhibitors booths for demonstrations of the newest technology.

The crowded exhibit floor made it difficult to meet with company management as they were busy talking to visitors, which is the goal of a good show. The past 2 years, the isles had been much slower and managers had plenty of time to talk with the press.

This show was different from the last two years and felt like an industry growing. Exhibitors were excited to talk about their technology but many companies brought less equipment to the floor this year. The lack of equipment was partially due to smaller booth sizes, reserved during a downturn, but also the equipment was too valuable and often shipped to a customer looking for a quicker delivery.

Over the past two days we talked with management from over 50 companies and we saw too many new products to list. Company management was upbeat and a few were even hiring new staff.

We met John Hartner, Executive Vice President of Dover Technologies walking the floor and he said they were hiring at several of their divisions as overtime was not meeting the demand. He also commented that lead-times were becoming an issue as the supply chain had not yet caught up with demand.

Several companies told us they were on target for record sales years and this included capital equipment and chemistry suppliers. It's hard to image that 18 months ago, the economic slowdown in our industry looked like it may go on for years, but within a few quarters had reversed course.

Most of the exhibitors we met with during the show reserved a space for the show in 2011 and are looking forward to a busy second half of 2010.