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SMT/HYBRID/PACKAGING, Nürnberg, Germany, 5-7 May 2009
Article Type: Exhibitions and conferences From: Circuit World, Volume 35, Issue 3
Crisis? What crisis?
At the Press Conference held on the first day of the annual SMT/Hybrid/Packaging Exhibition, Udo Weller, the Head of Mesago Messe Frankfurt GmbH expressed surprise that, despite all of the harbingers of doom and soothsayers of a slough of despond, numbers attending his show in Nürnberg were very good indeed.
Downstairs he had rented the same square meterage of exhibition space as he had back in 2007; he was expecting some 24,000 souls through the turnstiles, much as usual, and some 400 conference delegates. True, the number of exhibitors was down a touch, but given the decline in travelling budgets, overall he could see no major change. About 30 per cent of the exhibitors were internationals, the lead country being the USA, hotly followed by Switzerland, Asia and then the UK.
He paid tribute to the efforts of Dr Randolf Schliesser of VDE/VDI Innovation+Technik GmbH, who had, with tireless dedication, been successful in the conception, creation and commissioning of a fully operational production line involving the assembly of radio sensor nodes on advanced technology printed circuit boards (PCBs).
He mentioned the “Optics meets electronics” group stand on which the Fraunhofer Institute had brought together companies involved in the sphere of opto-electronics, and finally the Service Point EMS platform for contract manufacturers who develop and produce electronics assemblies and systems.
Then it was the turn of Professor Dr-Ing E. Herbert Reichl of the Fraunhofer IZM in Berlin, and Committee Chairman of SMT/HYBRID/Packaging to talk about packaging for high-brightness light emitting diodes (LEDs). As systems become smaller, so there is a need for system integration towards more functionality. LEDs have many common applications, as anyone who has seen a new-model Audi coming towards them will vouchsafe, but it is the future applications that excite, and a market figure of $8.2 billion that will add to the frisson of expectancy. He illustrated an example of LEDs used in the world of fashion, with some evocative lighting in a lady's dress, and when he mentioned head-up displays we do not think he was necessarily talking haute couture; more windscreen interiors. By 2011, the LED market will be...