Marcy’s Musings: A Frighteningly Good October Issue
It’s Only Common Sense: Win the Sale Before the RFQ Arrives
The Marketing Minute: Marketing Is a Team Sport
It was a beautiful fall day in the heart of downtown San Francisco for the start of SEMICON West 2026 on Oct. 13, which has grown steadily since it first started at the San Mateo Fairgrounds, eventually moving to Moscone Center in 1992, then to Phoenix in 2025, in recognition of Arizona’s growing importance as a semiconductor hub.
After great success in Phoenix, some were disappointed to head back to San Francisco for 2026, but it did not seem to affect the numbers. This year’s event boasted a sold-out exhibitor floor featuring 1,501 booths and was expected to draw over 40,000 visitors, though we won’t know definitively for a few weeks. For the next three years, though, SEMICON West will head back to Arizona, which Joe Stockunas, CEO of SEMI Americas, explained, is likely to be the show’s permanent home.
Stockunas opened the event by recognizing the sponsors and explaining what was in store for us that week. SEMI has 20 areas of concentration, with its West event featuring over 60 topic area sessions and 500 speakers. Notably, for the first time, the event featured three full days of advanced packaging presentations focused on “today, tomorrow, and challenges ahead,” because, as Stockunas stated, “There's no challenge in semiconductor that we don't take on and find a solution for.”
In many presentations, remarks were made about packaging as a primary bottleneck for chip advancement. That’s consistent with what we’ve been hearing at other industry events like APEX EXPO, where the interconnection and complete system package is getting as much, if not more, attention right now than the chips they house.
The show opened on Tuesday with a toast to a historic milestone: Global semiconductor sales surpassed $1 trillion through August, reaching the mark four years ahead of the 2030 projection that many had once considered unrealistic.
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie then welcomed attendees but seemed disappointed that the show was headed back to Phoenix. “San Francisco is a city on the rise,” he said, citing intentional efforts to rebuild the city, with specific initiatives addressing homelessness, addiction, and crime, and celebrating a 25% drop in crime over the past year. The clean-up is noticeable.
The next speaker was SEMI’s CEO Ajit Manocha, who commented on the fast pace of change in semiconductors today. His enthusiasm was contagious. “What happened in 50 years (has now) happened in five years, thanks to AI, IoT, and quantum,” he said. “I've been in the industry 46 years. I've never seen happy times like these days, and I can tell you, this is just the beginning of the happy times.”
He also struck a serious tone. “We are living in a fractured world,” he said, due to the energy crisis, tariffs and controls, talent shortage, chemical restrictions, geopolitical tensions, fragmenting global supply chains, and cybersecurity threats. But he also said that the semiconductor industry is resilient and will rise to these challenges, as it always has. He emphasized the need for collaboration and the particular importance of standards as we address these hurdles.
Keynote CEO Summit
I attended the fireside chat keynote with Bill Frauenhofer, director of the CHIPS Program Office in the U.S. Department of Commerce, who recounted an $800 billion investment leading to 49 projects in 23 states. The three large investment centers are in Phoenix, Texas, and upstate New York. Under the Trump administration, many CHIPS Act investments have increased from their initial levels, and lucrative trade deals with countries such as Taiwan (recently awarded a $500 billion agreement with the United States), Japan, and Korea will amount to over a trillion dollars of investment into the U.S.
However, Frauenhofer said he receives consistent non-negotiable feedback from all the major semiconductor players: “We have to be in Asia.” He reinforced the U.S. government’s commitment to working within that reality while creating and reinforcing domestic supply chain resilience.
Frauenhofer specifically addressed concerns in both the mining and processing of critical minerals and magnets, and he reassured us that there is “extreme collaboration” between the Oval Office and the Departments of Defense (War), Energy, and Commerce.
David Reeder, president and CEO of Entegris, who moderated the keynote, said that the semiconductor journey has echoed the space race of the 1960s, an analogy we would hear several times during the week.
“We expect a lot from our government,” Frauenhofer said in closing. “What do you expect from CEOs and the companies? What we need is for CEOs and boards to say that they are going to use those fabs and facilities in the United States.”
There were so many other amazing speakers I listened to during the week. To highlight a few:
- Sessine Ghazi, president and CEO of Synopsis, said we must think differently about the way we develop chips and that AI will dramatically affect chip design in the near future. Notably, the question of whether customer AI agents would become important IP was addressed.
- Ankar Gupta of Siemens said, “Accelerated EDA is here.”
- Timothy Costa of NVIDIA presented to a full room, emphasizing their collaboration with partners and going into details about their CUD-X libraries, which he called foundational.
- David Jarzynka, CEO of Brooks Automation, focused on the connection between systems and machines, noting that it takes $25–$35 billion to build a single 2-nanometer fab and that at any given time, only about 35% of the equipment in a fab is in use. “It’s time to reconfigure the workflow, not just the tool,” he said. “Shorter paths, fewer handoffs, more output. The economic benefits far outweigh any of the risks.”
- Thomas Sonderman, CEO of SkyWater Technology, spoke about quantum computing. “I have good news and it’s quantum,” he said. Twenty years ago, no one knew what an iPhone was, and 20 years from now, quantum computing will be integral to nearly everything we do.
In addition to all the tech talk, there were several big presentations on workforce that addressed challenges in recruitment, training, creating better awareness of our industry and our jobs, the importance of internships, and more.
SEMICON West 2027 Only Six Months Away
Another notable change for SEMICON West is its change to a spring schedule, with the 2027 event taking place March 30–April 1. Stockunas said these changes to the date and location were driven by two main motivators. First is SEMI’s copious global events schedule, with five SEMICONs in 100 days, starting with Taiwan in September, followed by India, Europe, West, Munich, and Japan. This has created stress points for their events team.
The second motivator is accommodating the show’s growth and the consistent waiting list of exhibitors that can’t be admitted due to lack of floor space. Admittedly, their options are limited in October in Arizona, even though it is one of the most popular event months due to our pleasant fall weather.
It was a week filled with so many interesting presentations and discussions. In all, advanced packaging, supply chain worries and long lead times for new equipment, workforce concerns, and capital investment were continually on everyone’s lips.
Unable to do everything I wanted, I bounced between sessions, gleaning what I could. I also took the opportunity to interview a handful of companies working to address some of the semiconductor manufacturing industry’s greatest challenges. I’ll be sharing some of those interviews in an upcoming issue of I-Connect007 Magazine.
