World wafer fab capacity stats delayed

LONDON – The global chip manufacturing capacity statistics for the first quarter of 2011 are late but will be posted in June, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association.

No reason was given for the delay. "The release of the SICAS Quarter 1 2011 Report has been delayed until June. We will post an update as soon as an exact release date is known," SIA said in a note on its website.

The semiconductor international capacity statistics (SICAS) are based on returns from 23 chip manufacturing companies and extrapolated to be representative of the overall industry.

The statistics are made available to the participating companies within six weeks of the end of the quarter and they are published on the SICAS website about a week after that. Thus Q1 numbers are typically posted mid-to-late May.

One reason for the delay could be uncertainty on how to record the loss of manufacturing capacity, and capacity utilization, at Japanese companies affected by the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami that struck northern Japan on March 11. This will have had a small but significant effect in the first quarter but is set to have a much bigger effect in the second quarter.


Related links and articles:

www.sicas.info

www.sia-online.org

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