EETimes-Asia, covering design developments around the world, has been pointing to Asia's steadily increasing design clout during recent years. Some could argue that it's been apparent, anyway.

But as a publication for design engineers in the region, we've been able to underscore this somewhat subtle change over the years.

And now, at a time when Asia's place in the electronics design landscape is well established, we feel blessed to witness this remarkable journey from the trenches. Electronics engineers around Asia deserve much of the credit for their perseverance in making this journey a success.

Semiconductor sales in the Asia-Pacific are projected to grow by 69 percent between 2004 and 2008, reaching $150.4 billon in that year, according to an annual forecast by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). Overall growth projections for Asia are by far the highest.

According to another prediction from World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS), The Asia-Pacific market, already worth nearly half the global total, is set to achieve annual growth rates of 16.2 percent, 11.7 percent and 12.4 percent in 2005, 2006 and 2007, respectively.

At this point, as Asia's place in the electronics design realm seems assured, we'd like to point out an observation that's been long overdue. In July 2004, EE Times first called for WSTS to break Korea, mainland China and Taiwan free from the enormous Asia-Pacific region; if this made sense then, it makes even more sense now.

As Dylan McGrath of EE Times, our sister publication in the United States, points out in his recent commentary titled "High time un-Pac Asia," both SIA and WSTS have been grouping Korea, mainland China and Taiwan along with Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and several other countries as part of the massive Asia-Pacific region.

Years ago, when these three markets were small electronics destinations, it made sense to lump them into one lot of fledgling electronics players. But now, as Korea, mainland China and Taiwan have become electronics powerhouses in their own right, it'd be worthwhile to consider providing specific data for these three markets.

To emphasize the demographic differentiation, we have modified the format of our annual technology outlook stories. Away from the scope of coverage of design areas like wireless, consumer, power and displays, we are presenting exclusive design outlook stories from Korea, mainland China, Taiwan and—last, but not least—the rest of Asia-Pacific.

Asia has come a long way in its quest for electronics design prowess and the contributions of Korea, mainland China and Taiwan have been crucial to this technological ascent. It's about time that these three design destinations find their own identity in the formation of market intelligence data, in the same way they are being represented in the EETimes-Asia family of publications.

On that note, EE Times-Asia wishes all its readers the best for the new year!

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