Introduction
Bill Spencer
International SEMATECH
Dr. Spencer described the symposium as part of a program, begun more than two years previously, to study government-industry partnerships. The program had already studied several government-industry efforts, including the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, the Advanced Technology Program of the Department of Commerce, the NASA Ames Research Center in California, and government-industry partnerships in the United States, Japan, Europe, and Taiwan.
The government-industry partnerships program had moved toward a study of solid-state technologies—principally semiconductors—in an effort to understand the role that technology has played in the New Economy. Specifically, the partnership program has attempted to clarify the role of semiconductors, communications, computers, and software in the rapid GDP growth that occurred between 1995 and 2000. In this sense it focuses on the semiconductor area but aims to examine the broader phenomenon of partnerships that include government, industry, and academia and to illuminate not only the technology involved but also the economic consequences for the nation.
The purpose of the current symposium, he explained, was to hear both from experts on the technology of solid-state lighting and from representatives from both the private and public sector. These individuals would be able to describe the technology in terms of its value to the lighting industry and to the national economy.