From September 18 to 20, “SEMICON Taiwan 2019” was held in Taipei, Taiwan, and the exhibition was thriving successfully with the participation by the world gas majors and many Japanese equipment manufacturers. The event was part of the seven world-wide exhibitions held annually by Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) and the one held in Japan every December is “SEMICON Japan”.

The SEMICON held in Taiwan having Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC) and Taiwan Micron had been attended by so many exhibitors as 680 companies last year with a total of 36,700 visitors making the exhibition a great popular event.

The Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center used as the event site is located in the south port zone at the east end of Taipei City, adjacent to the Nangang Software Zone known as High-tech Park. The SEMICON Taiwan was held on the 1F and 4F full floors in the exhibition center attracting lots of visitors.

As aforementioned, the SEMICON Taiwan had drawn so keen attention that many well-known manufacturers exhibited including gas majors like Taiyo Nippon Sanso, Air Liquide and Versum Materials who were actively working to introduce their products and services.

In the field of gas-related equipment and material manufacturers, many a Japanese company exhibited. There were also local trading firms exhibiting brand products. It shows that the event was quite an attractive exhibition for Japanese companies concerned.

However, we have to pay our special attention to the serious influences to be exerted by the US-China and the Japan-Korea bilateral relations.

Through our news gathering activities to the exhibition booths at this time, we could see that the complicated international relations were showing up and in fact we heard a voice like “A depression in China would surely exert a direct influence to such a Taiwanese company as TSMC which is doing a consignment business of FUAWEI.” On the other hand, we also heard an opinion that in many cases Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturers are designating Japan-made equipment for their ongoing investments while China and Korea are losing their momentum.

At any rate, the Taiwanese investments and business operating conditions are at the center of the keen attention of Japanese companies. In that sense the market probably will be formed depending upon the situation from now on. (Our next report will detail the individual situation of the exhibitors.)