SEMICON JAPAN (sponsored by SEMI) was held in Tokyo Big Sight from December 13 to 15 of last year. It had 67,613 visitors. 　
　For the peak period in the past there were more than 100 thousand visitors in the full wings of the Makuhari Messe where industrial gas and specialty gas manufacturers exhibited all together. We cannot deny our feeling that the exhibition scaled down. Most of the exhibitors were manufacturers of gas-related equipment. Only two gas distributors of Tomoe Shokai and Toyoko Kagaku participated in contrast with the 20 equipment manufacturers which were said to be fewer than before.
Against our anticipation, it was noticeable that the development of products and technologies in the non-semiconductor field attracted our attention while the market of semiconductor equipment has been marking the record-high good business result. In the midst of the remarkable change in the process with the booming 3D nano, measures are being taken to respond to the trend, while new solutions are being actively explored in the field of valves and fittings, for instance, by Fujikin which came up with the proposal of “Fingerprint Authentication System”.
As for the semiconductor equipment manufacturers, only domestic manufacturers participated such as Tokyo Electron, Hitachi Kokusai Electric, Hitachi Hitech and Screen Holdings.
However, attention was drawn to the proposal about equipment to cope with requirements for 200mm, not limited to the cutting edge technologies.
In Japan the main requirements lie in small-quantity and versatile semiconductors like sensors and it is one of the responses to the requirements for 200mm. In addition, with a complete lineup of Minimal Fab equipment, there were noticeable participants from abroad like Taiwan as a response to the high-mix low volume production. The seminar dealt with the keywords of IoT, Smart and Automatic operation, which made us feel the beginning of the 4th Industrial revolution.