Double-digit growth seen by some in ICs
By Mike Clendenin
EE Times
February 15, 2002 (2:37 p.m. EST)
eet.com
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Predictions of a strong recovery circulated through the recent SEMI Korea confab, with the president of the U.S. research consortium Sematech calling for at least 20 percent growth in semiconductors this year, to $175 billion. "That's not too different than what I've seen from some of the [forecast] services," said Bob Helms. Based on past chip cycles, Helms said he believes the industry will tip $300 billion by 2005.
Though IC Insights and Dataquest are making conservative predictions of 1 percent and 3 percent growth, respectively, other analysts are beginning to weigh in with double-digit projections. Semico analyst Sherry Garber's prediction was a 20 percent rise, to $170 billion, based on her belief that communications companies will come back to the market looking for ICs, even as new products like Microsoft's Windows XP and DVD players start to kindle demand. VLSI Research, meanwhile, expects 23 percent growth this year. |
