For many companies and the US government, October 1 marks the beginning of the new fiscal year---though it's just the start of another quarter for others.
During my days as editor in chief of MICRO, I often wished for a celebration of the annus novus, but Canon Communications' managers, directors, and execs were more likely to breathe a sigh of relief that they could now spend a bit more freely and look forward to meeting goals rather than worrying about those not met. (From what I hear at my old company, those sighs of relief are fewer and far between these days.)
Soon we will get the financial revelations of publicly traded corporations, wave after balance-sheet wave, as they present their quarterly and/or annual results to the markets. No doubt there will be fodder for this blogger among the numbers. But in the meantime, in honor of the new year, here are some forecast factoids from Bill McClean and the lads at IC Insights, who presented their fall update seminar a couple of weeks ago. I wasn't able to attend, but they were kind enough to send me the preso.
The group's tweaked forecast has the semiconductor market rising 2 measly percentage points to $252.7 billion this year, with capital expenditures practically flat (+1%) at $55.2 billion. The semi materials market will show double-digit growth again, climbing 11% to $40.6 billion. But 2008 is looking rosy, with a 15% year-to-year pop this year. This forecast double-digit increase would put the global IC market back on track with the healthy unit-volume growth trend of every year since 2002---except 2007.
Skipping to IC Insights' forecast of the top 20 companies in 2007, Intel, Samsung, and TI remain the medal-winners on the list. Toshiba (up) and STMicro (down) swap the fourth and fifth spots, while Sony and NXP move up a notch to ninth and 10th, respectively. The biggest loser on the list is Freescale, which will plummet from ninth to 16th position, if prognostications hold true and the ex-Motorola SPS experiences an 11% slide in sales. Qimonda is also expected to see a downward move, slipping from 15th to 18th. Other notable climbers are Infineon, bumping from 16th to 12th; Qualcomm, jumping from 17th to 14th; and Elpida, cracking the top 20 and garnering the 19th slot.
Despite Intel's and IBM's claims to the contrary, flash memory continues to drive process technology, according to McClean and Co. The big two Korean chaebols and Japanese big daddy continue their knock-down, drag-out brawl for market domination. Hynix fired up its 60-nm line in 1H07, with its 57 nm hitting stride in 3Q07 and resulting in 20% cost savings. Toshiba has more than 50% of its flash production at 56 nm as of 3Q07, and its Fab 4 is expected to start running 43-nm process in 4Q07. And then there's Samsung: with its 51-nm process percolating in 3Q07, a process that reportedly accelerates read-write speeds by nearly 80% compared to 60 nm, the Korean megacorp's 45-nm line is scheduled to start cranking silicon in 4Q07.
Just reading those numbers makes me feel a touch of vertigo, but also reminds me of one of the big process-tech questions of the day: Just how far can flash memory scale before it hits the proverbial wall o' physical limitations?
One statistical grouping guaranteed to pique my interest is manufacturing capacity and utilization. The IC Insights' table of the top 10 2006 installed capacity leaders reveals just how much of the world's processed wafers are produced by a relative handful of companies. Led by Samsung, the fab companies listed accounted for nearly 4.45 million 200-mm equivalent wafers' worth of installed capacity per month, or 48.2% of the global total (factoring in joint-venture wafers as well).
With the exception of Intel, STMIcro, and Micron, the list is comprised of Asian (including Japanese) companies. The top three---Samsung, TSMC, and Intel---hold 21.5% of line capacity all on their own, yet another indication of the concentration of chip-manufacturing power in the hands of the few.
For those embarking on your new fiscal year, may your margins be mighty and your capacity, installed or otherwise, properly utilized.
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