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Lam sees foundry and NAND spending strong in 2008 |
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Oct 11, 2007 at 04:47 PM |
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 Steve Newberry, President and CEO of Lam Research, believes that semiconductor capital spending will be flat in 2008 compared to 2007 with spending up for major foundries, microprocessor and NAND manufacturers. Newberry made these comments during a conference call with financial analysts to discuss the company’s first quarter 2008 financial results.
Capital spending in 2008 will, according to Newberry, track close to that of 2007, which was front-half year loaded. Only DRAM CapEx will be down in 2008 compared to 2007 by between 10 and 15 percent, Newberry said. He noted that foundries would need to spend in 2008 as the ramp of 65nm gains traction. “In the foundries, utilization rose to over 90% in the fourth quarter, up from over 80%. The demand has largely been at 90nm and above, with the ramp at 65nm coming more slowly than anticipated due to a narrowing of the number of logic device applications that realize a cost and performance benefit from moving from the 65nm technology node. We do expect that 65nm volume will ramp throughout the next year, driving the need for capacity expansion at that node and for additional capacity to support the initial ramp for 45nm,” he commented.
According to Newberry, CapEx spending by the major foundries could be as much as 25 percent above 2007 levels for 2008. And with demand for PC and servers remaining strong, investment by logic chip manufacturers could easily be up by 20 percent, Newberry said.
The only blot on the landscape would seem to be DRAM. Newberry expects CapEx spending on DRAM capacity additions to decline by 24 percent in the second half of 2007 compared to the first half of 2007, with further declines expected throughout 2008.
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Comment by mguntu on 2007-10-12 09:22:09
With all due respect to Mr. Newberry, it would be tough for the foundries and NAND segments to make up for the decline in DRAM space. It is a known fact that the foundries have seen very healthy demand at more mature nodes than at sub-90nm nodes. 65nm ramps have been slow and could still be slow as we transition to 2008. Orders from IMFT Singapore, Rexchip Taiwan and Hynix M11 may be beneficial to a select few equipment vendors. But we will have to wait and see to really believe in a strong 1H08. |
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