While OMMIC has a truly global market (more than half of the company’s sales come from outside Europe), this will be the first time that OMMIC has participated as an exhibitor at the MTT-S IMS event. Our reasons for doing so this year are twofold. Firstly, over the past couple of years OMMIC has been developing technologies and products that have a real advantage compared to what is currently available from either European or North American suppliers, making North America more interesting as a market place. Secondly is the recognition that the MTT-S IMS is an international show where we not only expect to meet our current and potential North American customers and partners but also, and equally important, it offers the opportunity to meet customers and partners from across the globe. Our presence has been ‘missed’ by our customers in the past – even our partners from Europe – and we intend to set that right this year.
Another factor is the choice of Atlanta as the venue for this year’s event as it is an international hub with good infrastructure and it is well situated for both US and international visitors. For any exhibitor the location is crucial.
At OMMIC we see the main challenge for the company over the next year as one of successfully expanding the company – we have launched new products and entered new markets with success and have a healthy order book. The difficulty now is how to expand our operations at a time, when for example, it is increasingly difficult to find engineers and technicians interested in the fields of microwave engineering (or even electronics) and semiconductor processing. This is a problem for our whole industry – at least it is certainly the case in Europe – and we need to get the best young people into engineering and keep them.
Our expansion also means finishing our transfer to the six inch wafer line, but this is the sort of problem that any Fab manager dreams of. While the current exchange rate hurts companies exporting from the Euro Zone it does help us when it comes to investing in new equipment. And this growth is being driven by our customer needs, not on a hypothetical future market prediction. I think OMMIC has made the right choices over the last few years with a slow but continuous investment over the long term and a dynamic technology roadmap. Our slogan of a few years ago-Growing with the Needs-and our present slogan-Innovating with III-Vs-really sums up this successful strategy.
The MTT-S IMS Show has always been a great place to meet all our customers and as an exhibitor this year we expect it to be even better. So please take the new opportunity to see what OMMIC has to offer by visiting Booth 214. We look forward to seeing you there.