Date: 23/09/2009

Semiconductor industry is cautiously optimistic on next phase of growth

Intel, TI, Rambus, Volterra Semiconductor, Lattice Semincoductor, and Melexis are some of the semiconductor vendors who have increased their 3rd quarter 2009 outlook, saying industry is bouncing back to growth. Vendors named above are into different domains/markets of semiconductor chip applications, indicating overall growth.

Samsung Electronics though is getting pulled out of semiconductor market slump, is cautious on fast recovery and on the future outlook. But this estimation may prove wrong based on the way memory market bounce back after a severe fall. It may all begin with shortage of memory chips and ends up high price rise resulting in happier times for DRAM, SRAM and flash memory vendors.
With every analyst prediction pointing towards growth, year 2009 might end up matching 2008 semiconductor revenue levels. May be little short -off.

Most of the semiconductor fab service providers have also indicated growth in fab utilization rate. Chartered Semiconductor has raised its third quarter revenue guidance to a range of $405 million to $415 million from its prior guidance of $382 million to $394 million.

Not just the chip companies, even the semiconductor equipment companies are also getting into the growth path. Cymer, a supplier of lasers used in semiconductor manufacturing estimates a revenue growth of 30 percent in the third quarter.

Generally speaking semiconductor is always a growing industry and most critical in the knowledge economy of future. The failure is only for those who are not updating their chips to latest requirements (in all senses). Semiconductor only adjusts itself once in few years to scale up further.