After the cancellation of SEMICON Korea in January, not many were surprised to learn that SEMICON China would not take place in March as planned. After a couple of months in limbo, SEMI finally announced that the big exhibition would be moved to the end of June, during a weekend, and overlapping with the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival – a three-day national holiday. This, however, did not deter people from attending the show, as the venue’s CEO Michael Kruppe could later report: “The show went well, with 30,000 visitors in three days.”
As a company with a dedicated sales office and team in Shanghai, we found ourselves in the fortunate position of being able to attend the show without sending anyone on a plane halfway across the world. Still, there were some precautions we had to take.
Taking Every Precaution
According to SEMICON China’s website, everyone entering the exhibition is required to hold an ID card, wear a mask, show the green Shanghai QR Code (a health-tracking application), and have normal body temperature. All those who enter the exhibition area must wear masks, use hand sanitizer frequently, maintain a safe social distance, avoid large gatherings, and reduce physical contact. So in addition to preparing posters, product flyers, and giveaways as we would usually do, we also made sure we brought enough masks and hand sanitizer – items that are not usually on our exhibition checklist.
SEMICON China in the New Normal
Other things stood out as unusual during this year’s show: “We strictly followed the protocols, though sometimes it was difficult,” said Joshua Zhou, our Sales and Marketing Director of ERS Greater China. “Considering the pandemic, you have to force yourself to change some habits — to hug or shake hands with your clients for example. From the perspective of a businessman wanting to build customer relationships, this is not very intuitive.”
Yet, at ERS we always aim at offering innovative “solutions”: Through the extensive promotion of our booth on WeChat and LinkedIn, we could set up appointments in advance to meet our business partners and customers closely but safely.
“The virus didn’t discourage people from attending SEMICON China. During the 3-day exhibition, we had about a hundred visitors at our booth, and we were pleasantly surprised that many of them were already familiar with our products,” notes Kang Zhao, our Design Engineer in Shanghai.
SEMICON China Sets the Stage
The safe and smooth execution of SEMICON China provides a great argument for the re-starting of live exhibitions. Based on official announcements from SNIEC (Shanghai New International Expo Center), China is ready for even larger shows, such as China Beauty Expo ( 9-11 July) and ChinaJoy Digital Entertainment Expo (31 July – 3 August).
“We are delighted to hear that SEMICON China was a successful event, and we wish we could have been there,” Laurent Giai-Miniet, our CEO and CSMO says. “All of our colleagues at Munich headquarters followed the progress of SEMICON China remotely – some of them even created WeChat accounts just to be updated on the latest news about ERS at the exhibition.”
Before SEMICON was over, we had already booked the same booth for next year. “We all hope that the world will return to its original order as soon as possible,” Laurent says. “As the semiconductor industry is growing rapidly in China, so is the demand for high-performance, reliable wafer test equipment. At ERS, we are ready to apply our expertise to develop thermal management solutions, which are essential for the Chinese IC market.”
We’re very excited about next year’s SEMICON in Shanghai, but before that, we are getting ready for another challenge: a virtual booth at SEMICON West.
Hope to “see” you there!
