News Article
Connecting research to manufacturing
Annual meeting of industry leaders discusses similar European needs but with more focus.
The European ISS for 2011 got under way in Grenoble today with the largest contingent of industry leaders seen at the conference for a number of years. The event was opened by ISS Chairman Cor Claeys with a recorded welcome from European Commission Vice President, Neelie Kroes who iterated her personal desire to see semiconductor infrastructure to develop a complete value chain infrastructure to ensure world class research in Europe does not end up
Carlo Bozotti, President and CEO of STMicroelectronics, gave an impassioned plea for the European community to invigorate the semiconductor community’s value chain by thinking and acting collectively to ensure research and development leads to manufacturing infrastructure. He acknowledged that there was no point competing like for like with other regions due to cost differences and institutional support in other areas.
Instead he suggests Europe looks beyond the ITRS road map and actively seek areas of expertise to become world leaders in manufacturing and development. The region must intelligently decide what technology can effectively be developed and manufactured in Europe and what is better manufactured in other regions.
He cited is own company’s approach to having fabs in Europe and Asia and choosing which products are manufactured most effectively and where.
In other words there was a shift from recent conferences where the call is to develop a manufacturing base comparable to Asia. The move is to a clever but clearer approach of the best way for Europe to progress based on its strengths in technology clusters and research centres. This message was reiterated through the morning sessions.
Europe has the dual problem of trying to act as a single entity while the constituents continue to behave as singular regions. This is a constant problem for the European Union and the current team at SEMI Europe have realised this and are acting more like an advocate for the industry than at any time at all.
Heinz Kundert, President of SEMI Europe, commented on the continued progress of these efforts to ensure decisions at industry, government and community levels are reflective of Europe’s strengths with the goal to develop longer term plans to invigorate and grow Europe’s semiconductor expertise which is currently niche products and specialist manufacturing needs.
All in all there is a more positive feel to the community currently being expressed in positive balance sheets for companies along the value chain. It makes a positive time for SEMi to achieve the goals of exploiting European strengths.
