Photo courtesy of SEMI
For more than half a century, SEMICON West and San Francisco were nearly synonymous. The annual gathering became a fixture of the Bay Area’s technology landscape, bringing together the companies, innovators, suppliers and decision-makers responsible for advancing the semiconductor industry.
Now, the industry is moving and its premier North American gathering is moving with it, as a record-setting Arizona debut turned a decades-long San Francisco institution into an annual Phoenix event.
Beginning March 30–April 1, 2027, SEMICON West will make Phoenix its long-term home, returning annually to the Phoenix Convention Center. The decision by SEMI, the global industry association behind the event, follows the extraordinary success of SEMICON West’s first Phoenix gathering in October 2025.
It is a significant win for Arizona and one that was years in the making.
SEMI first announced in 2023 that SEMICON West would expand beyond its longtime San Francisco home and begin rotating into Phoenix. At the time, the choice reflected something already becoming increasingly apparent: Arizona was emerging as one of the most important semiconductor manufacturing centers in the world. The effort to bring the event here included collaboration among SEMI, City of Phoenix, Arizona Commerce Authority, Greater Phoenix Economic Council, Visit Phoenix and the local business community.
Then came 2025.
SEMICON West’s Phoenix debut exceeded expectations. Registration surged 60% and the number of exhibitors increased nearly 50%, making it the most widely attended SEMICON West in nearly two decades. More than 35,000 people attended, with 1,500 booths and 860 exhibitors filling the Phoenix Convention Center.
What was initially envisioned as a rotation between Phoenix and San Francisco suddenly looked like something bigger.
In July 2026, SEMI announced that Phoenix would become the event’s long-term home beginning in 2027. The conference will also move to spring, helping SEMI better balance its increasingly busy international calendar of events in India, Taiwan, Europe and Japan. Events are already scheduled in Phoenix for 2028 and 2029.
San Francisco deserves recognition for the remarkable role it played in building SEMICON West. For more than 50 years, the Bay Area was an appropriate home for an industry that helped define Silicon Valley and transform the global economy. SEMICON West’s final scheduled San Francisco event will take place October 13–15, 2026, at Moscone Center.
But the semiconductor map has expanded considerably — and Arizona is increasingly at its center.
“Making Phoenix the permanent home puts it even more firmly at the center of the American semiconductor industry,” says Martijn Pierik, senior vice president at Bodewell Group. “This isn’t just landing a convention, it’s a recurring pipeline that brings more investment here, along with high-wage jobs for the engineers and technicians the state has been building toward. Then there’s the show itself — 30,000-plus people flying in every year, filling hotels and spending money on corporate hospitality across the city. That’s real economic activity on a schedule, not a one-off. Put those three together and Arizona’s semiconductor bet is compounding in real time.”
Since 2020, the state has attracted more than $200 billion in semiconductor-related investment, according to SEMI. Major chipmakers, advanced-packaging operations, suppliers, research institutions and workforce-development programs are creating an increasingly dense ecosystem across Greater Phoenix.
Perhaps most importantly, the decision demonstrates something Arizona has been working toward for years: The Valley is no longer simply attracting semiconductor companies.
Increasingly, the semiconductor industry is coming here to do business.
