VLSI Slightly Increases Global IC Market Growth Rate in 2011

Market research firm VLSI Research recently raised its forecast for the growth rate of the IC market in 2011; the agency previously estimated that the global IC market in 2011 will grow by 8.1% to reach US$268.7 billion in revenue, and now it is thought that this year The market growth rate was 8.9% and the revenue was US$270.7 billion.

The growth rate of the IC market in 2010 was as high as 30.9%, but VLSI stated that the current market sentiment signal is unknown and order activities have shown signs of slowing for the first time. "This is mainly due to the weakness of the memory market;" VLSI Research said in a report: "DRAM orders fell to low levels, and have not yet bottomed out; NAND flash memory, while doing well, but also to save the memory market decline Making some contribution, but not enough to offset the weakness of DRAM."

VLSI Research pointed out that DRAM prices have rebounded at the beginning of this year, bringing hopes for the market to reach the bottom, and manufacturers are also planning to increase capital expenditures in the second half of the year. However, the spot price of DRAMs has dropped again, which raises question marks for whether companies will implement their spending plans. What is even worse is that, although DRAM prices have temporarily risen due to rumors of out of stock, they have been unable to further raise prices because manufacturers have been supplying the spot market one after another. They have also turned the market's optimism into caution.

The state of NAND flash memory is much better than that of DRAM, but it also faces the annoyance of slowing demand. As a result, manufacturers are afraid to increase the average selling price (ASP) of the product even if the supply is tight in the spot market. However, the advent of Apple's new generation tablet PC iPad 2 will have the opportunity to bring business opportunities to NAND flash and other related chips.

Craig Berger, an analyst at FBR, another market research agency, said that the first quarter of 2011 should be considered as a period of dull performance: "According to observations from the semiconductor packaging and testing market in the latter part of the semiconductor industry, we believe that the overall development of the market seems to be more unexpected than previously expected. In the first quarter, semi-conductor production should experience a seasonal recession of 6.5%, and the increased production of Broadcom, AMD, and Xilinx cannot fully offset the reduced shipments of MediaTek and Marvell.