SEMI, the Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International trade organization, is sending over a team of experts to survey and document the impacts of the Taiwan earthquake. The island’s semiconductor industry is just beginning to understand the full impact said Stanley Myers, president of SEMI. Myers said that SEMI’s office in Hsinchu had reported minimal injury to the people of the semiconductor wafer fabrication testing and assembly facilities nearby. Now the organization wants to learn from the terrible experience in Taiwan in order to enhance the preparedness of the entire semiconductor industry. Significant portions of the world’s chip production takes place near seismically sensitive areas.
