CompoundSemi Online - The Original Compound Semiconductor Industry Newspaper

May 27, 2009...Some conferences are about the number of leads, some are about the exhibitions attached to them and a few are about something even more valuable... real networking. Whether an industry is up, soft or in the dumpster, those are the events you simply can not afford to miss. The consolation if you do happen to miss those few, real networking events, is that your competition will probably put you on their "thank you" list for next year's New Year's cards.

By "real" networking, I mean making or renewing one or two key connections that make an important difference in your business for the next year. That usually doesn't mean "getting one big sale", but rather "knowing where to look for the sales" as a result of that one connection or nugget you hear in a top-level presentation. I was on an airport shuttle bus in Seoul, Korea last week, and overheard two gentlemen having just that discussion. It sounded like they were involved in the medical relief field, working across the globe to make life a little better somewhere that it's a bit hard right now. The "money quote" I overheard was, in effect, "We have a few of these conferences each year, and while some of the talks are helpful, its really about that one person I meet that makes it worthwhile. If I hadn't come to the last one, I wouldn't have met you and there would have been no way we could have kicked off the whole India initiative that is making such a difference." By "making a difference" in their case, I am sure that more than one life was saved and more than one child was given a second chance to become who they are supposed to be. That's what an industry networking event is about.

The "Blue" conferences in Hsinchu, Taiwan (this year's version being Blue 2009, happening June 8-9) are exactly that kind of real networking event. You make or renew an important contact, and it makes a difference in lives of people you will never know. While the LED, solid state lighting and compound semi industries don't send relief workers to impoverished nations, they certainly enable those workers to be there. The opto-communications revolution not only provided massive streamlining and improvements in telecom and networking systems, but it also fueled material improvements and process cost-reductions that bled over to the LED industry. In 2002/2003, that manifested itself in the first commercial blue LEDs, and with blue added to red and green, the triumvirate was complete and the LED revolution was off and running. Blue and white keypad illumination drove prices down allowing more robust LED-based backlighting, giving our personal electronics better reliability and a longer run-time between charges. LEDs made it into camera flashes and flashlights (or "torches") to increase reliability and battery life. Have some lives been saved by being able to grab a flashlight that still shines brightly despite many, many hours of run time, or that didn't suffer a failure when dropped at exactly the wrong time? I'd venture to say so. As LEDs have moved into computer display backlighting, does it seem likely that the enhanced color gamut has helped improve the accuracy or immediacy of a diagnosis that made a difference to at least one patient? Seems a fair guess that it has. Traffic signal lights used to run on incandescent bulbs that died all at once, suddenly, and regularly. We have all seen the aftermath of a car running a red light (or what was supposed to be a red light) in our driver's education class.

And then comes general lighting. Have LEDs made a difference yet? I tend to think not much more than a blip compared to what they will as light comes to places and does things it really hasn't before. As a result of work by organizations like Light Up the World, someone did not have to make a choice today between using their limited amount of kerosene for cooking or lighting their hut. A young man or woman with a big destiny will be able to read a book this night, somewhere in the world, and it wouldn't have been possible if an LED light hadn't been connected to a battery that had been charged by the sun. We will continue to hear increasingly about medical procedures being made more effective by the quality of light that an LED offered. An Alzheimer's patient will be granted a few more years to see, and remember, their grandchild's most extraordinary year due to light therapy that only an LED-based system could provide. A searcher will stumble and drop the only flashlight bright enough to spot the injured hiker, but it won't break. A life will be saved, and another and another. Less energy will be needed to light our homes and offices, freeing up economic resources that otherwise would not have been able to improve the quality of someone's life. Another piece of the puzzle that leads to "the key" falls into place, because someone met someone at the right kind of real networking conference.

True to its 7-year track record, the Blue 2009 agenda this year is featuring industry heavyweights that have information and thought processes that anyone involved with the business of LEDs and LED production needs to know. Dr. Robert Steele of Strategies Unlimited, will provide a mid-year update on the state of the market, so you know where to look for business, and why. Canaccord Adam's Jed Dorsheimer will share a brand new study on worldwide GaN/InGaN chip capacity as a percentage of demand by application, while Dr. George Craford of Philips Lumileds will share "pioneer perspectives" that can only come from someone who was there while an industry was being born from a simple, glowing diode. We'll also be hearing a keynote talk from Norbert Hiller, VP & GM of Cree's LED Components, on how far the industry has come, and how far it yet has to go to realize it's potential for making a difference. If you provide materials or equipment to the LED industry, you need to be there. If you fabricate or package LEDs, you definitely need to be there. If you want to make sure you're doing everything you need to to position yourself and your company to make that difference, well... you know the answer.

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Blue 2009 Conference Promises World Class LED Industry NetworkingLIGHTimes Staff

SolFocus CPV Modules First to Receive IEC CertificationCompoundSemi News Staff

Skyworks Enables Two New Samsung Touch Screen Mobile PhonesCompoundSemi News Staff

IBM and Bulgarian Government in Nanoscience PartnershipCompoundSemi News Staff

Spire Receives U.S. Patent for Nanophotovoltaic DevicesCompoundSemi News Staff

Strategies Unlimited Predicts Increasing Demand for Advanced Substrates for GaN DevicesCompoundSemi News Staff

Emcore Corporation to Continue Supplying Space Systems/Loral with Multi-Junction Solar CellsCompoundSemi News Staff

Aixtron Gets Biggest Order Ever from China; Receives Second Order for Planetary Reactor System from INERCompoundSemi News Staff

Blue still shines in LED and compound semiconductor industriesTom Griffiths - Publisher