ATLANTA – Strong end market growth and stabilizing average selling prices will drive semiconductor industry revenue to $316 billion in 2008, an increase of nearly 18% from projected 2007 sales, according to
Objective Analysis. The company projects chip revenue growth of 6.3% in 2007, based in large part on improved ASPs. Foundry wafer demand will grow faster than capacity later this year, especially for 65nm sizes and below, increasing foundry utilization rates and ASPs, the analyst said. The increase, coupled with greater demand in the communications and gaming end-markets, will drive higher ASPs for logic and programmable devices, the firm said. A slowing in memory capacity additions reportedly will stabilize memory ASPs, especially those of NAND flash. Nearly all of 2007's expected price declines will have occurred in the early months of the year. The Objective Analysis forecast is bullish compared with others recently issued. Last week,
Semico Research lowered its semiconductor forecast for the second time in recent weeks, saying that the IC market will grow 1.8% this year.
