The end of the first quarter is ending on an upbeat note; namely, the market is beginning to recover, and the light at the end of the tunnel is once again visible. This light signifies optimism and a demand trend that tell us we're on the road back. I have polled many companies and the attitude is always the same: "We've hit bottom and we're getting orders, with a lot of quoting taking place." At the same time-at long last-budgets are being put into place to build confidence in longer-term plans. Keep in mind that we're coming back from last year's 32 percent semiconductor market decline, with tremendous losses, cutbacks and restructurings. The key to our recovery is the optimism I am hearing from most companies about their business upturn. Albeit with some caution, many companies are bringing their new products to market and promoting some of their older products, as well. Some markets were virtually untouched during the downturn, optoelectronics for one. The recent OFC 2002 show, presented by the Optical Society of America in Anaheim, was filled with optimism for the wireless area. The Next Breakthrough in Packaging Applications The combination of opto, MEMS/MOEMS and electronics has triggered the next breakthough in packaging applications, assuming that several packaging automation issues are solved. At the OFC show, a number of companies, including Kyocera, Palomar and Silicon Bandwidth, announced new packages and packaging automation aimed at volume production of opto products. This automation is the Rosetta Stone for reduced costs in opto manufacturing and packaging. We at Chip Scale Review believe that opto packaging is a natural extension of our roadmap. Along those lines, place Terry Thompson, our Opto Packaging Editor, on your editorial contact list. [tethompson@aol.com] In case you missed the MEMS market projections by a MEMS industry group from a recent issue, here they are again: "There are an estimated 1.6 MEMS devices in use per person, today, in the U.S. This is expected to reach nearly five per person by 2004, a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent." SEMICON West is approaching, with a July 17 date for the San Jose part. It will certainly be a midyear bellwether. Let Chip Scale Review shine its own light on your breakout products and services with an ad and/or product editorial in our July issue. i 
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