Never before had we expected that SEMICON SEA 2020 would go virtual.
The COVID-19 crisis abruptly halted our ability to hold our premier Southeast Asia electronics manufacturing exposition as we typically do – in the physical realm. The pandemic tested our adaptability, challenged our willingness to experiment and, perhaps above all, accelerated not only our own but the world’s digital transformation. We had to change our way of doing business and learn to connect virtually like we had never had before.
SEMI continues to believe that virtual interaction is no replacement for face-to-face engagement. But, like the rest of the world, we fast-tracked our digital education and staged the virtual event 20 July to 21 August 2020 to gather supply chain players and help fulfill the tremendous potential of our great industry. For all the suffering the COVID-19 has caused, the pandemic has underscored an important truth – that we need innovation through collaboration now more than ever to help solve the world’s greatest problems.
We thank all our event sponsors as we turned what started as a grand experiment into a successful event that drew nearly 3,000 attendees to our webinars, business matching sessions and other online offerings designed to help them uncover new business opportunities. Following are other highlights.
Southeast Asia Pavilion at Virtual SEMICON West 2020
In our first collaboration with SEMICON West, our Southeast Asia Pavilion at the event welcomed virtual visitors from around the globe to help them form new connections and grow their businesses.
Business Matching Sessions
Technical buyers from more than 15 multinational companies along with 141 pre-qualified suppliers attended more than 50 meetings across four online business matching sessions.
Technical Webinars
Company representatives from regions including Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Taiwan, the United States, the UK, Israel, China and Japan shared their expertise and industry insights at SEMICON Southeast Asia 2020 webinars. In addition, experts from leading semiconductor companies such as Micron Semiconductor Asia Operations, ViTrox Corporation Berhad and A*STAR took part in our technical exchange by sharing the latest trends in the rapidly evolving semiconductor industry.
Talent Development: Inspirational University Program Talks
With building the talent pipeline critical to sustaining growth of Southeast Asia semiconductor manufacturing dynamics, talent champions from Lam Research and GLOBALFOUNDRIES highlighted career opportunities and pathways for young engineers while generating recruiting leads. More than 750 students from Malaysia and Singapore engaged panelists with questions during the sessions.
The SEMICON Southeast Asia team extends its tremendous thanks to sponsors and attendees for their support. As we all navigate the pandemic and hope in the near future to awaken to a brighter day, we will continue to connect virtually and, whenever possible, in person as the semiconductor industry evolves and flourishes.
The SEMICON SEA 2020 team
In the meantime, we will all continue to pull together to support our resilient industry as it outperforms most other manufacturing sectors. Semiconductor capital equipment shipments were up 23% globally in the second quarter of 2020 versus the same period in 2019 and semiconductor chip growth remains in positive territory.
Our team has already started planning for SEMICON SEA 2021, scheduled to take place at the Setia Spice Convention Centre in Penang, 18-20 May 2021.
We look forward to seeing you again soon as we continue to strengthen the microelectronics ecosystem!
Bee Bee Ng is president of SEMI Southeast Asia.