SEMICON West 2024 Preshow Interview, FLEX Conference Review

Estimated reading time: 11 minutes

In this preshow interview for SEMICON West 2024 and the FLEX Conference, we dive into the dynamic world of semiconductor and flexible electronics, revealing cutting-edge insights from industry leaders with SEMI’s Samer Bahou, Gity Samadi and Julie Rogers and Bob Praino from Chasm Advanced Materials who advises the FLEX program. Set against the backdrop of the prestigious Moscone Center in San Francisco, the discussion traverses the history, evolution, and future directions of this critical sector, spotlighting the CHIPS Act, the importance of flexible and hybrid electronics technology for the sector going forward, and touches on issues such as sustainability and workforce. Here’s why you should be attending SEMICON West 2024 and FLEX Conference.

Marcy LaRont: SEMICON West 2024 will take place at Moscone Center in San Francisco July 9-11^th. Please give our readers a brief overview of the show’s history and development.

Samer Bahou: SEMI was founded as an industry association in 1970 and the SEMICON West show soon after. It had humble beginnings, at one point being held at the San Mateo County Fairgrounds. It has expanded to have a global scope. Each of SEMI’s regions has its own SEMICON event, but SEMICON West is the founding show and has grown to be international along with SEMI. This show is a reflection of key issues for the semiconductor industry. In addition to the focus on technology through exhibitions and technical presentations, we're also looking at issues like smart factories, smart data, AI, sustainability, and workforce development. 

LaRont: Is there any particular issue or topic you anticipate being a stand-out at this upcoming show?

Bahou: Not one single topic, but we have paid a lot of attention to how we are structuring the overall program and have made some positive adjustments this year. Last year, we launched what we call our CEO Summit Keynote Program, which will be on both Tuesday and Wednesday. The first day of the program is focused on investing in American manufacturing with the US CHIPS Act in mind. We will do a deep dive into the evolution of the CHIPS Act over the past year and the developments around it, getting updates directly from the Departments of Commerce and State. Then, attendees will hear from industry executives from members like Intel and Global Foundries on how they're moving forward with their plans and where they're seeing the act’s impact. 

SEMICON West is the show of the SEMI Americas region, but it's also the most international of all the SEMI shows. The second day of the show will be keynotes focused on global opportunities and challenges. Topics being discussed include sustainability, workforce development, the power and promise of AI, and supply chain.

LaRont: We are very interested in the CHIPS Act implementation story. Our part of the supply chain’s follow-on legislation is the Printed Circuit Board and Advanced Substrates Act, which we are working to get passed in Congress. Does SEMI have a position on that?

Bahou: SEMI represents the full Semiconductor manufacturing supply chain. For some time, we've been putting out announcements supporting awards from the Department of Commerce around the CHIPS Act. The early announcements were all focused on chip makers, and there's a definite focus on advanced chip making; but to really secure and advance the industry, it must address the full supply chain including equipment and materials. We advocate with the Department of Commerce on this as well.

LaRont: I'm glad to hear that the whole is supporting all the ancillary parts.

Julie Rogers: It is for the betterment of all, right? And we want everybody to play well in the sandbox together. We have done many CHIPS Act webinars over the past year to help people with their applications. Joe Stockunas is SEMI Americas president. He just got back from G7. He was invited by the Department of Commerce to attend, makes many trips to Washington, D.C., and has been instrumental in helping policymakers navigate and implement CHIPS and Science Act funding within our industry. He spent 30-plus years on the corporate side. He brings a wealth of knowledge and enthusiasm. We are fortunate to have him here at SEMI. There is exciting growth ahead.

LaRont: Let’s switch gears a bit and talk about the FLEX Conference, which is 23 years old this year. Tell me a little bit about that program, how it began and has developed.

Bob Praino: Right around 2001, the goal for flexible technology was flexible OLED displays. They were only supposed to be a year away and seven years later, we were finally able to do the technology. But for me, I am on the coating side, so the history of the flex conference has been the transition from vacuum coating technology and processes to atmospheric processes, including printing and coating.

More broadly for flex, the realization that if you want flexible displays, you actually need flexible electronics as opposed to rigid electronics was an important milestone. The next stage in my mind was the more recent recognition that the additive printed world would be challenged to meet the product performance requirements the semiconductor industry had already achieved. Finally, the evolution of flexible hybrid electronics and the combination of those with more standard semiconductor types of applications is important. Building those to have flexible capabilities is an important focus right now.

LaRont: When was that recognition about additive manufacturing?

Praino: Between 2008 to 2012. I specifically remember that 2012 was a huge deal because every large printing company in the U.S. and some from overseas came and said, “We can print all of your electronics.” They came with presentations of these 48-inch-wide printing presses. We realized the printing presses were giving us 10 mils of accuracy, not 10 microns of accuracy. There was a whole learning curve that had to occur.

COVID also had a dramatic impact. Prior to that, there was a tremendous focus on wearables. Then there came the recognition that if we have a trillion wearables, we're going to have a big E-waste problem in the world. So, we need to address that. The sustainability aspect of things has really come to the fore in the past few years. Today, everyone is thinking about things like battery materials and that we can’t keep manufacturing these things without a plan to dispose of them without creating another huge environmental problem.

Gity Samadi:

This year’s FLEX Conference is also aligned with the manufacturing and processing part of the CHIPS Act. We have the FlexTech Consortium, which focuses on Flexible Hybrid Electronics, Hybrid Electronics, and additive processing, driving technology development where the Flex conference originated. Additionally, we have our Nano-Bio Material Consortium, which focuses on integrated systems and sensors. Then we come to our Smart MedTech initiative, which emphasizes commercial integrated systems and brings to market end products in various forms, one example being wearables.

The first two days of the FLEX conference will concentrate on these developments, and the third day will spotlight our Smart MedTech pavilion as the commercial pillar on the SEMICON West floor, focusing on end products such as wearables.

Integrated sensing technology, additive manufacturing, Flexible Hybrid Electronics, and Hybrid Electronics, heterogeneous integration and advanced packaging are key focuses of this conference, featuring companies like Elephantech, Kraetonics, and many others in this arena.

Next, we come to our FLEX exhibit floor, featuring a Japan Pavilion with seven Japanese companies showcasing their products. We will offer a specific exhibitor tour for our attendees, moving from booth to booth where companies can directly discuss their innovations with the visitors.

Another highlight of our conference is our lineup of keynote speakers on Tuesday and Wednesday. Lama Nachman, an Intel Fellow and director of Human & AI Systems Research Labs, will discuss responsible AI and human collaboration. Axiom Space will share insights on how they facilitate experiments in space. ASE will focus on advanced packaging for sustainable additive manufacturing, and Toyota will also address this area. Additionally, Artemis will cover soft robotics, and Chasm will present their transparent heater, following their introduction of a transparent antenna last year. The conference will also include talks on various printing technologies, materials, substrates, and the reliability of the integrated systems. It will conclude with a panel discussion on the future of flexible hybrid electronics and additive processing.

We are also highlighting a special program on government funding opportunities through our two consortia, FlexTech for Flexible Hybrid Electronics (FHE) and the Nano-Bio Materials Consortium (NBMC). We receive government funding and conduct technical gap analysis and the identified gaps guide the topics of our requests for proposals (RFPs). Just this week, we hosted a webinar on funding for FHE and introduced the most recent RFP. We will discuss these funding opportunities in detail, noting that, while these funds are distinct from the CHIPS Act, they reflect over two decades of our consortium history with government funding.

Praino: It is worth mentioning some of the changes we undertook for this year’s conference. We've moved to longer presentations with a deeper technical dive, providing attendees with a good view of the technologies being worked on across a pretty broad spectrum of interest and application areas. We also made a change to fewer overall talks to make it easier for people to move from presentation to presentation and not miss talks they want to attend.

Samadi: The beauty of this conference is that it is not only a technical conference but also aims to build a community around the consortia, all directed towards fostering the electronics ecosystem and establishing a sustainable supply chain and driving Standards in FHE.

LaRont: I’d like to switch gears again for a moment and ask you about workforce. In our segment of electronics, there is a significant generation gap and a huge knowledge transfer that needs to happen over the next few years. From your broader view, what are you seeing?

Samadi: In the application engineering areas, we are seeing a lot of young workers coming in. It seems to be a relatively popular career choice. The younger generation is really focused and passionate about it. I do see more of a generation gap in traditional printing.

Praino: Yes. From our side, and I'm a coating technology person by background, I see a huge gap in terms of a knowledge base that will likely be lost once the older generation of workers moves on. I see the same thing in the printing arena, as Gity mentioned. I think a major selling point that we need to be communicating that manufacturing can be a really good, fulfilling, and even a fun job and career. We definitely see that as an issue and attracting people is important. Now that Google and Meta have hired everybody they possibly can, perhaps we'll start to tap into the rest of the workforce again.

Bahou: We will have a workforce development pavilion at SEMICON West. I encourage everyone there to swing by and look at some of the programs. There's a strong focus on, and demand from, members to get more visibility with the young generation.

Praino Ours is a small company. Our applications lab is right near Boston, and for the last three years, we've brought two co-ops out of Northeastern every six months. It's great. These kids are bright, energetic, and they're thrilled to be doing the work. We are mindful of our company culture too, as we bring these students in. And they look at it and say, this is actually fun. I think that's a key part industry and associations can play, making sure that we tap into areas like universities.

Samadi: Yes, and there is also an opportunity within our NBMC, the Nano-Bio Materials Consortium. We offer an internship program where we fund interns to participate in the projects that align with the topics of interest to our Consortium.

LaRont: It is good to hear that the issue of workforce is being addressed at SEMICON West. Is there a particular message you hope attendees will take away?

Praino: I would like to ask the attendees to help us define our future journey. We've gone many places over the years, and there are a lot of technological change happening that will change our industry in the years to come. We want and need conference attendees to weigh in on defining where we need to go moving forward. So, we are doing everything we can to encourage participation and open communication.

Samadi: I just want to emphasize what Bob said, we are keen in receiving feedback. Did attendees feel that something was missing from the show this year? What do they want to see in the next couple of years? Do they like what we’ve done, or do they want something different? How would they like to see Flex conference evolve in the future? We hope that attendees will take those opportunities to give us this important feedback.

LaRont: Thank you all for your time. I am looking forward to the SEMICON West show July 9-11^th, and I wish you all a very successful show and exhibition!