Semicon West 2025: Greene Tweed's Takes on a Fantastic Show
We’re fresh back from Semicon West 2025 – this year held in beautiful Phoenix. It was a great venue and a terrific show.
The semiconductor industry is as dynamic as ever. From attending the presentations and walking the exhibition hall to meeting with our customers, Greene Tweeders had quite a busy and productive week. In many ways, this show is always a homecoming of sorts. Thanks to all of our customers, partners, and prospects who stopped by.
"Our company has never been better positioned to support the bold new innovations our clients are pursuing. Greene Tweed [GT] has invested in our global capacity to support the next growth in semiconductors. After dozens of client conversations at this year’s Semicon West, I’m confident that our cutting-edge technologies combined with our technical expertise will play a key role in helping our clients shape the future of the industry."
– Magen Buterbaugh, President and CEO, Greene Tweed
We gauged the overall sentiment as very positive. The attendance itself was reported to be 45% higher than last year’s Semicon – with the attendance on the first day to be about double that of last year. And we could feel that change. Our booth was busier than ever with interest from customers, prospects, partners, analysts, and press.
The industry continues to grow both in value and in technology innovation – this is uniquely semiconductor! We acknowledge the sluggish economy, demand imbalances, geopolitics/trade challenges, talent shortage, and sustainability issues, but there was plenty of positivity and excitement that caught our attention.
The Market: Growth!
Daily presentations reassured us, despite the industry’s current headwinds and inherent cyclicality, that solid, long-term growth is expected for the foreseeable future (Some even hint at more than the $1TR by 2030). And the equipment industry has solid growth projections as well. SEMI reports that wafer fab equipment will grow 6% in 2025 and 10% in 2026.
As for the rumored bubble, the overall sentiment was: Bubble? What AI bubble? Analyst opinions differ somewhat, we got the sense that most were generally bullish on the idea that the AI bubble being whispered about will not be a concern in the near term. While semi companies plan for supply and demand imbalances, the overall “fear” of a near-term AI bubble was overshadowed by near and mid-term optimism. In fact, SEMI predicted that the AI portion of the semi market will rise from low single digits in 2020 to 48% by 2030. Leading-edge logic/memory equipment investment is projected to rise from 37% in 2023 to 55% in 2030. AI is here to stay.
Ever-evolving Technology
Every corner we turned in the exhibition hall revealed the diversity of the semiconductor ecosystem and the technology advances of each company. AI and high-performance computing, and emerging communications needs, are driving advancements in technology across the ecosystem. This includes everything from transistor architecture and continued miniaturization to heterogeneous integration and advanced packaging. Aside from the cost component, Moore’s law doesn’t appear to be dead … it’s gone 3D!
"We were truly excited to see the ongoing growth and technology advancements related to AI and HPC demand. From etch and deposition to advanced packaging innovations like hybrid bonding, announcements continue in support of evolving transistor design and miniaturization, and heterogeneous integration. Greene Tweed is partnering with our customers to help them solve process challenges in these areas ... from advanced sealing design and materials to chamber components solutions."
– Shawn McCloskey, CCO
Speaking of 3D, along with front-end chip process changes, we couldn’t help but notice the increasing number of presenters and exhibitors talking about advancements in advanced packaging – from hybrid bonding to substrate innovation, to changing ecosystem dynamics. Market leaders and emerging players continue to advance packaging design and processes which, in turn, play to Greene Tweed’s value proposition of “When it can’t fail” innovation.
“I heard quite a lot of exciting announcements in the heterogeneous integration area, where GT already plays in advanced packaging with Chemraz® solutions. I’m excited about extending our collaborations into these uncharted territories.”
– Thyag Sadasiwan, GM, Chemraz®
We already provide cutting edge solutions in this space to help with the emerging process challenges related to yield, such as particulation, electrostatic discharge, changing chemistries, temperatures, and vacuum conditions. This dynamic continues as a key inflection, and GT continues to collaborate with leading and emerging equipment providers to address these pain points.
“As a new member of Greene Tweed, I am excited by the ongoing technological and process advancements within the semiconductor industry. These innovations are critical to meet the significant demand challenges of AI and datacenters. I look forward to solving these challenges by leveraging GT’s market-leading performance materials and innovative R&D capabilities to support current and future technical initiatives in deposition, lithography, etch and other critical semiconductor manufacturing processes.”
– Henry Ma, Industry Director, Semiconductor
Amidst all the excitement around growth and technology advancement, we also heard concerns about applying innovation in a cost-effective manner. GT remains committed to providing a well-balanced portfolio of options to meet these concerns while addressing specific process challenges. This includes our key offerings across elastomers like Chemraz® and Fusion®, and engineered thermoplastics components like ONX®.
“GT has an extensive portfolio of innovative material and design expertise to solve unique and complex challenges, such as consistently balancing performance with cost of ownership - a critical need we heard from our customers. A good example of this is our Fusion® F07 line."
– Adam Phan, GM, Sealing Systems
Looking Ahead
We heard announcements and saw innovations from companies of all sizes, including Applied Materials, Lam Research, KLA, Von Ardenne, scia Systems, and many more too numerous to mention here. It truly takes a village to execute on innovations, and Greene Tweed is delighted to help semiconductor companies continue to advance and enable the strong growth trajectory of this industry.