Don't look down

摘要

Perched on a spangled cloth high above the show floor, acrobat Christina Van Loo daz-zles onlookers at the Nikon Precision booth during Semicon West in mid-July. She won the U.S. national championship in sports acrobatics seven consecutive times, Nikon says. Despite her impressive performances, visitors to the annual event could be forgiven for seeing Van Loo's modified high-wire act as an embodiment of the semiconductor industry's vertiginous gyrations of late.