The IPC, which many of you may remember as the Institute of Printed Circuits in Northbrook, Ill., has entered show biz big time with the second running of APEX. Presently, we'll have some good things to say about APEX 2001, the show and conference that ran from Jan. 15-18 at the San Diego Convention Center. We'll also point out some areas that need improvement. First, we expect that the majority of exhibitors will say that the event was worth their time and money. IPC placed attendance at nearly 7,000 visitors over the run of the show. IPC, by the way, has retained its old three-letter acronym, but now terms itself the "Association Connecting Electronics Industries." No Talk of a Recession And despite the talk of a recession, and spending cutbacks that we've been hearing since Q4 last year, APEX talk was buoyant and optimistic. Visitor traffic was heavy on both the ground level and second floors. After a brief tour of the exhibits, I only had to close my eyes briefly to imagine that I was back at a younger NEPCON, the show that gave birth to the IPC SMEMA Council's competitive endeavor. The remnants of NEPCON-now divided into five shows, and renamed EtroniX-will surface again Feb. 27-March 1 at the Anaheim Convention Center. Several passers-by to the Chip Scale Review booth asked me what I thought of the show. They also proceeded to tell me what they thought. Kent Connell with ESEC USA and a show veteran, maintained a small exhibit. Switzerland-based ESEC, he said, originally wanted a larger space but couldn't get one. He admitted, however, "This is not our show."
An ESEC competitor, headquartered in the east, dispatched a scouting team to APEX. Their charter, they told me, was to see if there was a fit for their company, next year. ESEC was the only major die attach/wire bonder vendor with a presence, small though it was. Ceferino Gonzalez, a DuPont marketing manager, observed when he stopped by the magazine's booth, "This is an assembly show." Indeed, if you were looking for chip subcontractors, socket makers or IC assembly gear suppliers, you were wasting your time here. If you were looking for assembly equip-ment-whether to populate a board or assemble a keyless remote for a car-this was the place to be. It was also a preferred venue for sellers of components-not ICs, but slightly larger ones, such as pumps, connectors, etc. If that's what the IPC wanted, they got it in spades. Which only goes to prove the old saying, "Be careful what you wish for." Let's recap, very briefly, the origin of APEX. In 1999, several industry giants, who were longtime NEPCON exhibitors, joined forces. They decided that they were paying NEPCON's owners (Reed Exhibition Co.) too much money, and were getting too little for it. The cost then was $39/square foot. At NEPCON, exhibitors like Cookson, Nordson, Panasonic, Philips and Siemens boasted multi-tiered booths, reaching nearly to the ceiling of the Anaheim Convention Center. Led by Cookson's Speedline, these exhibitors bolted from NEPCON after the 1999 show. They formed APEX under IPC's SMEMA Council, with prices for show real estate cut in half. But enough history. Is it any wonder, then, that APEX is beginning to look like a NEPCON clone? The first APEX, last year in Long Beach, Calif., was, by exhibitor and attendee count, a success. It outgrew the Long Beach venue and gave the NEPCON folks a royal plastering. Unfortunately, NEPCON 2000 was a dreary affair. If you weren't there, you were in the majority. In an attempt to recoup its losses, the NEPCON folks, possibly inspired by other shows that have tried the idea (WESCON, for example), have split NEPCON into five separate, but co-located, mini-shows this year. Operating under the EtroniX umbrella, one of the mini-shows will carry the NEPCON moniker. (Ironically, WESCON will also be co-located here!) A Tip of My Hat Now, I promised I would have some good things to say about APEX, and I do. First, the location was brilliant. I tip my chapeaux to whoever discovered the San Diego Convention Center. This venue, with its two-story architecture (now undergoing expansion) offers a second floor that's bright and cheery, lit by natural light filtering in through hundreds of windows. This convention center was the star of the show as a result of its architectural attributes. The lower floor, however, was not unlike most other shows: dark and somewhat cavernous. The lighting was inconsistent downstairs, while upstairs people were bathed in sunlight from morning to early afternoon. Downstairs they were wrapped in artificial light, which is what most of us expect at a tradeshow anyway, giving everybody that pale and wan look. At this point, the IPC is undoubtedly full of itself and believes it can do no wrong. Not exactly. In a few more years, IPC may replicate SEMI, which it appears to be attempting to do anyway. SEMI is now little more than a gargantuan trade organization with a voracious hunger for adding shows and new business units so it can add more shows and business units. Its interest in setting standards, one of its early missions, is only one spoke in a very large wheel. As you may know, SEMI added a slick, monthly four-color magazine last year. We expect that SEMI will continue adding businesses that it perceives as being highly profitable in the near future. For its sophomore year, IPC did well, overall. Still IPC could take some lessons from SEMI, an organization that knows how to run a pressroom. I was kept waiting for over an hour in the pressroom, while the IPC's Clint Gendusa shuffled up and down the stairs trying to get me a badge. At the SEMI shows, you get a badge in the pressroom immediately. I'm with the 'Pres' When I finally got it, the ribbon attached to my badge read "PRES." That's not a typo. They ran out of "Press" badges but found a surplus of old "PRESIDENT" badges, which they tore in half vertically! Not a big thing, certainly, but one of many things that shouldn't have happened. We would also like to see each booth ID'd with a booth number-common to many large shows-but not this one. A frequent question by attendees to those staffing exhibits was, "What's your booth number?" Often, the booth staffers themselves didn't know, and it took a lookup in the show directory to find the answer. Again, congratulations to IPC for a job well done. We're eager to see, meanwhile, if EtroniX can recapture the former success it knew as NEPCON. We'll let you know in the next issue.
That's Using the Old Noggin! Speaking of sports, (which we weren't), remind me never to play golf with John Strinic, sales honcho at Multichip Assem-bly Inc., San Jose. I'm not a golfer, anyway, and now, after hearing John's tale of woe, I know why. John was recently smacked by a golf ball at Castlewood in San Jose, between his nose and eyes. He required stitches in the emergency room. Talk about guts-bleeding, John drove himself to the hospital. He credits his childhood in Pittsburgh, Pa., for his tough constitution. The story should end here, but it doesn't. John was also bopped in the noggin by one of his golf partners two years ago (at Castlewood's other course!). And John was hit again while golfing at the Riverside course in Southern California a few years ago. If you decide to play golf with John, you (and John) may wish to wear a helmet. Mea Culpa My apologies to Jim Kelley of Walsin, an up-and-coming Taiwan-based subcontractor. In our last issue, we listed Walsin's web site incorrectly. If you clicked on our listing, you did find Walsin, but the wrong one. So please change your address book to read www.wae.com.tw. We also listed ASE's web address incorrectly in the last issue. It is aseus.com.
|
Copyright © 2001