China Forecast to Miss Chip Targets
Veteran analyst still sees good growth ahead
Rick Merritt
1/26/2018 00:01 AM EST
SUNNYVALE, Calif. — China’s ambitious drive to expand its semiconductor industry will fall far short of its targets, according to Bill McClean, president of IC Insights. In the short term, 2018 will be a good year for the global chip industry, despite the ups and downs of the DRAM market and capital spending, he said.
China will fill 15 percent of its semiconductor needs in 2020 and perhaps 20 percent in 2022, McClean predicts. That’s significant growth, but far from the targets of 40 percent in 2020 and 70 percent in 2022 that the China government has set.
The goals are “just ludicrous…China taking over the rest of the world in IC production is not happening,” McClean said at an annual talk here.
The country has pledged as much as $120 billion to fund its chip industry, in part because it spends more on importing semiconductors than on oil. But McClean expects only about 10 percent of those funds will be spent over the next three years on capital equipment.
He pegged China IC production in 2022 at $33.6 billion, 7.2 percent of the worldwide total, up from five percent last year. “Even with some upside, China will still make less than 10 percent of the world’s production by 2022…I could see China getting 10 percent of the DRAM market, but not taking big chunks out of Micron, Samsung and SK Hynix,” he said.
continues at eetimes.com
[Finally a sector insider says it publicly!] |
