The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) is talking the industry down, said Malcolm Penn, CEO of Future Horizons at his company’s International Electronics Forum 2010 in Dresden today.
"I was bemused by the SIA comments on the March figures when they said they were reasonably confident the industry would grow in double digits this year", Penn told the IEF, adding, "it’s downright impossible to get it into single digits. It would take a minus 15% Q3, and a minus 20% Q4 to get it into single figures."
Penn revised the Future Horizons forecast for 2010 to 31% growth, adding that there was sufficient upside for it to hit 34/5%
"The memory market could easily top $75bn – that’s $25bn profit", said Penn, "they’re looking to spend $20bn on capex, but they probably can’t because the equipment manufacturers can’t supply that much equipment."
The industry is sold out everywhere, said Penn, with utilisation rates of 90%. "For the leading edge, you can’t get a wafer for love or money", said Penn.
Making that worse is the fact that there is not a single new fab being built in the world today - the first time in the industry’s history that no new fab is being built. And that’s been the situation for the last 12 months.
So the happy market conditions are here to stay. "There will be at least two years - going into a third year - of a really good market", said Penn.