Perched on a bluff overlooking the Mohawk River in Niskayuna, NY is a powerhouse of industrial R&D; GE’s Global Research Center (GRC). GRC just celebrated its 110 year anniversary. Thomas Edison’s original desk is on display in the entry lobby to prove this point! (Click on any of the images below to enlarge them.) The Niskayuna facility is the largest of several GRCs. GE also has centers in Munich, Germany;…
SEMI-MEMS & Sensors Industry Group
The ConFab 2013 countdown begins
The countdown to The ConFab has officially begun. The dates are set: next year’s event will be held June 23-26, 2013 and we’ll be back at the Encore at The Wynn Las Vegas (an encore at The Encore!). Thanks to everyone who participated last year. We had two great keynotes – John Chen from Nvidia and Ali Sebt from Renesas – plus six other sessions, packed with great speakers. We…
SEMICON West 2012: Where Has the Love Gone?
Has the romance between the MEMS and semiconductor industries started to fizzle? Or is the real issue that for new equipment vendors, the appeal and shiny/sexy new-ness of MEMS has faded as they salivate in anticipation of a switch from 300 to 450mm (with all of that sexy, new and expensive semiconductor equipment)? In 2011, I declared that it was the "the year of MEMS" at SEMICON West in my…
Sensors Expo report: MEMS Pre-Conference Symposium
MEMS in the mainstream — Music to my ears For the second year in a row, MEMS Industry Group was host to the Sensors Expo Pre-Conference Symposium, and this year’s theme was "MEMS in the Mainstream: Commercialization and Product Realization — Leveraging the MEMS Infrastructure." I felt like a bandmaster — not trying to make the music, just trying to get the band with all its different instruments, rhythms, and…
MEMS isn’t NEW
What do you think of when I say the words "MEMS new product development?" Do you envision new categories of newly discovered MEMS hatching somewhere in a university lab? If your answer is "yes," perhaps you should rethink that — because MEMS isn’t new. If we are to grow this $9 billion/year industry to a hundred-billion or even trillion dollar industry as some predict, we need to think of new…
Conference Report: MEMS Executive Congress Europe
ST’s Carmelo Papa boldly declared that "MEMS is only limited by the imagination" during his opening keynote at MEMS Executive Congress Europe. In many ways this phrase exemplifies the conference itself. All of the speakers on our four panels — industrial, biomedical/Quality of Life (QoL), automotive and consumer — as well as our keynotes — conveyed that frontier feeling that MEMS can truly change the world. Sure we have some challenges…
The ConFab: Big data is here
Sponsors and delegates arrived today in sunny Las Vegas, for the 8th annual "The ConFab," our conference and networking event that features planned meetings between conference sessions. Everything is set up and we’re ready to go, comfortably ensconced in The Encore at The Wynn. The conference and meals will be in the Bach and Beethoven rooms on the second floor (very nice!) and we have a networking reception event tonight…
Oh, snap!: Pics from The ConFab
Some pics from The ConFab 2012 setup: Getting the conference books ready to distribute (Luba and Karen), inside the book, various signs — sessions, sponsors, Solid State Technology — view down the hall, Sabrina at the conference table, The ConFab map.
Funding the future: How best to spend limited R&D dollars?
One of the big issues now facing the industry is to how best spend limited funding for research and development, when so much needs to be done. Continued scaling to 20nm and below, a transition to 450mm, 3D integration, device new structures, a bevy of new materials with unknown integration challenges – these are all needed. These issues are top of mind since I’ve been asked to moderate a panel on…
Thirty years ago today
Today marks an interesting milestone for me: 30 years ago, I started work as an editor covering the semiconductor industry. I reported to Don Levinthal, publisher of Semiconductor International, at 222 W. Adams in downtown Chicago. The magazine was produced by Cahners, which had recently acquired Kiver Publications. Milt Kiver, as I recall, had won fame and fortune by writing a book on color television repair (Television Simplified, first published…
