A First: The ESD Alliance Industry Meeting at SEMICON Taiwan

One of the highlights of last month’s SEMICON Taiwan for the ESD Alliance was our Industry Meeting, a well-attended gathering and a great cross-section of the semiconductor industry, including EDA, IP, packaging, fabless and academia. Remarkably, not all attendees came from companies or organizations currently members of SEMI or the ESD Alliance, though many were. All were interested in learning more about who we are and what we do.

I kicked off the session with an overview of the ESD Alliance and our history that goes back to 1989 when we were known as the EDA Consortium, aka EDAC. I spent a few minutes detailing why EDAC changed its name to the Electronic System Design (ESD) Alliance in 2016 and then became and SEMI Strategic Association Partner in 2018. Those moves significantly broadened EDAC’s charter from providing EDA companies with a forum to address cross-industry issues and promote the industry to our goal to serve a larger design ecosystem. We consider that ecosystem to now include semiconductor IP, embedded software, advanced packaging for system scaling and service companies that provide design know-how and resources. My talk concluded with a look at our benefits and why companies should consider joining both organizations.

Robert Li, president of Synopsys Taiwan, took the stage and moderated a lively discussion among an enthusiastic crowd of attendees. In going around the room, it was evident everyone had a unique perspective to share that enhanced our understanding of the needs and directions of this important region in the global semiconductor and electronic product market.

Attendees pointed to the increasing need for automation to streamline the interface between chip design and complex packaging, for example. It’s clear from the discussion that design and manufacturing can no longer be “siloed” but must work together from the beginning of the project, something we see as well. As I mentioned in my last post, we are about to kick-off a “Connecting the Divide” campaign to help design and manufacturing better understand what each other does.

Participants mentioned software as an area where Taiwan needs more expertise. While it is a global leader in chip design, packaging, assembly and manufacturing, software for these systems is critical and a huge market opportunity for any entrepreneur out there looking for a challenge.

As SEMICON Taiwan ended, we heard that our first Industry Meeting was useful. Interest is high for future meetings in Taiwan, though attendees encouraged us to pick one or two discussion topics for a focused, in-depth exchange of ideas. We intend to follow through and continue to collaborate with the other SEMI regions for more Industry Meetings in other regions of the world.

Coming Soon! Phil Kaufman Award Ceremony and Dinner

We hope you’ll join sponsors ESD Alliance and IEEE CEDA for the 25th Phil Kaufman Award ceremony and dinner in honor of Dr. Mary Jane (Janie) Irwin from Penn State. It will be held Thursday, November 7, from 6:30pm until 9:30pm at The GlassHouse in San Jose, Calif.

To register, go to: https://bit.ly/2nPL7Go. Attendance is open to member companies at a substantial discount though you don’t need to be a member to attend. Sponsorships and corporate tables for the evening are available as well. Julie Rogers, our director of marketing and operations director of marketing for SEMI Americas, (jrogers@semi.org) has details.

See us at Arm TechCon

Julie and I will be at Arm TechCon in the ESD Alliance Booth #844 this week, Wednesday, October 9, from 11:30 a.m. until 6:30 p.m. and Thursday, October 10, from 11:30 a.m. until 6 p.m. Please stop by if you’re there to discuss our charter, programs, initiatives and events. Arm TechCon is at the San Jose Convention Center in San Jose, Calif.

As always, send your comments or questions to me at bsmith@semi.org.

Engage with the ESD Alliance at:

Website: www.esd-alliance.org

ESD Alliance Bridging the Frontier blog: http://bit.ly/2oJUVzl

Twitter: @ESDAlliance

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8424092

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ESDAlliance

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 8th, 2019 at 3:29 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.