LONDON — The semiconductor market will grow by 12 percent in 2007 and by a further 16 percent in 2008, according to Malcolm Penn, chief executive of market analysis company Future Horizons (Sevenoaks, England).
As usual Penn found himself at the bullish end of the spectrum of analysts' opinions, which is showing a spread of 5 to 12 percent for 2007 chip market growth.
Penn made his assessment based on the view that there will be a belated return to ASP growth aligned with continuing unit demand over the next couple of years.
However, Penn's analysis is also based on the assumption that there will be no major shocks to the global economy and that price wars among the leading vendors of processors and memory will get no more extreme than they are already.
As the electronics industry has moved from being a low volume, high margin professional proposition to a high volume, low margin consumer one, it has become inextricably linked to the overall global economy, Penn said. Global GDP has shown four years of historically strong growth, despite high oil prices for the last two years, and some economists are predicting a collapse soon. However, other economists see the building of the emerging Asian economies as a stimulus to the world economy in the same way that the rebuilding of Europe and Japan was in the 1950s and 1960s, which produced a prolonged boom.
RSS
Digital
10 emerging technologies to watch:
EE Times has compiled a list of emerging technologies that we think will be worth watching out for in 2010. Biofeedback or thought-control of electronics are among the contenders.
10 CEOs out in 2009:
It's been a tough year for the global electronics industry and CEOs. We survey the dismissal of 10 industry CEOs during the first three quarters of 2009 and what's ahead for the rest of the year.
Executive pay:
The economy stinks. Rank-and-file engineers are feeling the pain. What about technology CEOs? We crunched the numbers buried in corporate financial statements to find out. Here's what we found.
10 companies in trouble (revisited):
What follows is an updated version of 10 companies in trouble. Some companies have been removed since the last version, others remain. Still others have been added to the mix.
Early predictions for 2010:
The electronics industry is recovering, but there is still some uncertainty in the market. Some see a boom year in 2010. Some see a double dip. So what's in store for the rest of this year and 2010?
Top 10 IC vendors with cash:
The world's biggest IC companies by revenue rank not only among the best in their respective industry segments but are also more likely to have huge piles of cash that can be used to fund acquisitions, R&D and product development.
Notable women in microelectronics:
There is no better time than a global economic recession to examine the keys to successful corporate governance. So, EE Times has compiled an international list that celebrates women who are business and technology leaders in semis.
EE Times updates Silicon 60:
Seventeen companies have been added to the lastest version of our Silicon 60 list of emerging startups. Forty-three companies survived as emerging companies that are still worth watching.
RSS| 
Digital| 
Mobile
