IC growth to pick up in Q3.....................
eet.com
IC growth will resume in third quarter, forecast says
By Margaret Quan
EE Times
(03/02/01, 2:27 p.m. EST)
MANHASSET, N.Y. — A new report from IC Insights Inc. (Scottsdale, Ariz.) predicts that growth will return to the IC market in the third quarter of this year.
That's sure to be welcome news to IC manufacturers, who experienced a decline in the fourth quarter of 2000 and market contraction in the first quarter of this year.
IC Insights said it based its forecast on an analysis of the IC industry's past five downturns, which revealed that an initial quarterly decline is usually followed by two additional quarters of flat to negative sequential IC market results.
The research firm also found that in each of the previous downturns, positive sequential growth began in the third quarter following the initial decline.
This theory held true in 1985 and even in 1998 — a year of world recession — IC Insights noted.
If past market behavior holds true for the current downturn, which started with a 3 percent drop in the fourth quarter of 2000, the industry should expect contraction in the first and second quarters of 2001 and an uptick beginning in the third quarter.
"The timing of this renewed growth is expected to coincide with the elimination of the vast majority of excess IC inventory that was accumulated by electronic system producers throughout 2000," IC Insights said in a press release.
In addition, the firm said quarterly IC unit volume growth should bounce back at the same time, since it found IC unit volume growth patterns were similar to IC dollar volumes in each of the five previous downturns.
The report was released in the same week that Kirk Pond, chief executive officer of Fairchild Semiconductor Inc. (Portland, Maine), said he thinks the industry may have hit the trough of the latest downturn.
“I do believe this downturn is going to be short and brutal,” Pond said in an interview with EE Times. "I'm not an optimistic man by nature but I think January was the worst of it."
Pond made his statement as Texas Instruments Inc. cut its earnings and sales outlook based on weakening demand for semiconductors. Pond said Fairchild's bookings have showed signs of improvement. Fairchild indicated in February that its first-quarter sales should be down 10 percent sequentially, while second-half revenue would be 7 percent to 9 percent higher than first-half totals.
— Additional reporting by Brian Fuller. |
