Germany hosts industry's big event
19 May 2008
SMT Nuremberg – one of the key events on the electronics industry calendar – is nearly upon us, so this week we are taking a good look at the show and its special features, and what it has to offer the potential visitor.
As far as I am aware (and I am sure someone will dispute this), SMT Nuremberg is the largest annual show dedicated to our industry sector. Every year, despite fluctuations in the economy of Germany, Europe and the world, visitors and exhibitors seem to reflect on SMT as ‘a good show’. This year’s event, now only a fortnight away, takes place in Nuremberg on 3-5 June.
In 2007, 24,471 people visited the show; 17,864 (73%) from Germany and 6607 (27%) were international. While this makes the exhibition sound very German-centric, an international audience of well over 6000 is more than competitive with most other events around the globe.
So why do people go? More importantly, is it worth the trip this year? The key reason for going to any exhibition is to meet existing and prospective suppliers and see what new products they have to offer. In this issue of EMTWorldWide I have selected a dozen of the new product announcements for your enjoyment, but with the best part of 600 exhibitors flaunting their wares, there will be hundreds of other introductions during the show. We will, of course, be there to dig these out for you and report back in the coming weeks. But in terms of reasons to visit the show, I think that virtually every major piece of equipment (or software or materials etc) that has been or will be launched this year will be shown or previewed at this show. There is debatably no other comparable platform this year, but certainly not in Europe.
So what else has SMT/Hybrid/Packaging (to give the event its proper name) got to offer? There are a number of special feature areas, one of which is the Optoelectronics Pavillion. Being run by the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration, this area will feature all things optical – from technologies to materials, packaging, production equipment and so on.
Another interesting feature is ‘The Process Advice & Defect Clinic’ being run by consultant Bob Willis. This free clinic allows visitors to ask any process related questions and even bring along faulty boards for Bob to look at. He will have both X-ray and optical inspection equipment at his disposal.
Each day visitors can also visit for free the numerous forums that take place within the exhibition halls. There are between three and five panel discussions lasting half an hour on each of the three days and these are on both technical and business issues. There is also a full itinerary of vendor presentations lasting 20 minutes. My own experience of these is that the vendors have learnt their lesson – if they try and do a full-on sales pitch then the crowd melts away into the exhibition halls. On the other hand, a balanced presentation giving an outline of the technical problems and how they can address them tends to hold the audiences’ attention better. For a full schedule of the panel discussions and vendor presentations click here.
There is also a conference and tutorial programme which is outlined here. The Conference takes place on the Wednesday, has an automotive theme and is given in German. Tutorials take place on the Tuesday and Thursday morning and some of these sessions are in English. In both cases there is a fee and registration is required in advance. Follow the link above for more details.
The SMT web site offers much more information about opening times, travel, accommodation and more.
In the meantime, I hope you find this brief preview of interest.
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