The SEMI Industry Strategy Symposium (ISS 2018) started today with session one on economic trends. Daniel Niles (Alpha One Capital Partners) started it off with “A Golden Age for Global Growth – Semiconductor revenues up over 20% y/y (The Good News is Also the Bad News)”. The good news of course is that semiconductors continue… Read More
SEMI is a worldwide organization with local chapters like the one here in Oregon, where I attended a recent half-day presentation by several industry experts on the topic – Globalization, How it shapes the Semiconductor industry:
Semiconductor capital expenditures (cap ex) in 2017 will increase significantly from 2016. In August, Gartner forecast 2017 cap ex growth of 10.2% and IC Insights projected 20.2% growth. SEMI expects spending on semiconductor fabrication equipment will increase 37%. Cap ex growth is primarily driven by increased capacity… Read More
Last Friday I attended a breakfast seminar organized by SEMI in Hillsboro, Oregon with fascinating speakers from several high-tech companies: Qorvo, Intel, Oregon Angel Fund, Kimera, Moonshadow Mobile and Yole Development. I recalled that Qorvo was created from the merger of TriQuint Semiconductor and RF Micro Devices back… Read More
I’ve lived and worked in Silicon Valley for 13 years, but since 1995 I’ve been in the Silicon Rainforest (aka Oregon) where the world’s number one semiconductor company Intel, has a large presence, along with dozens of smaller high-tech firms. In the past year I’ve started to attend events organized … Read More
Last Friday I learned something new about IoT by attending a SEMI event in Wilsonville, OR just a few short miles away from where I live in Tualatin. SEMI puts on two events here in Oregon each year, and their latest event on IoT Sensors was quite timely and popular judging by how many attendees showed up. First up was Jeff Miller from … Read More
Global semiconductor capital expenditures (capex) are expected to return to the level of 2011 either this year or next. 2011 was the record year for capex as the industry returned to growth following the 2009-2010 recession. IC Insights’ August 2016 forecast called for 3.5% growth in capital spending to reach $67.1 billion, the… Read More
Next week is SEMICON West where more than 26,000 of my compatriots will meet to discuss the future of the all-important semiconductor industry. How important is the semiconductor industry you ask? Well, your life literally depends on it, absolutely. Scott Jones and I will be covering the event live for SemiWiki so stay tuned. If… Read More
The outlook for semiconductor capital expenditures (capex) in 2016 is weak. Gartner’s January 2016 forecast called for a decline of 4.7%. IC Insights in February projected a 0.8% decline. The table below shows the Gartner forecast along with the capex forecasts from the top three spenders (Intel, Samsung and TSMC) which… Read More
Semiconductor market forecasts for 2016 are all over the place. Jim Handy and Tom Starnes floated a report in January looking for 10% growth. Jim Feldhan at Semico turned outright negative at -0.3% just a couple weeks ago. Tossing out the high and low scores, analysts tracked by GSA range from 0.3% to 7.0% in March updates. What’s … Read More
