World News
03/01/2006
BUSINESS TRENDS
Chip industry tops records in 2005 with $227.5 billion, says SIA
Worldwide sales of semiconductors topped a record $227.5 billion in FY05, up 6.8% from the $213.0 billion posted in 2004, according to the recent figures from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). Demand was driven principally by the usual suspects: consumer electronics products such as cell phones, digital cameras, digital TVs, and MP3 players. PCs also finished strong, displaying 17% unit shipment growth in the final quarter. By product lines, microprocessors, logic, and flash EEPROM enjoyed 14%-18% year-on-year growth in 2005, with single-digit gains in optoelectronics (8.6%) and analog (1.8%). Small single-digit declines were seen in DRAM, DSP, microcontrollers, and discretes.
SIA president George Scalise did express some concern about regional trends, specifically how the US stacks up vs. other regions. He noted that the US enjoyed a 14.6% Y-Y increase in chip sales in December, but Asia-Pacific saw 20% growth. The US contribution to total worldwide capacity has slipped from 28% to about 24%, and at the leading edge has plummeted from roughly 35% to about 14%. But he applauded promises made by President Bush concerning a new American Competitiveness initiative, which includes big increases in funding for technology R&D, training, and education. “We have the right agenda; now it’s a case of getting it implemented,” Scalise said.
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The SIA estimates chip sales will be roughly flat in 1Q06, and over the entire year will grow about 8% to $245 billion, enjoying a healthy overall economic climate. Scalise said the market should keep pace with 10% CAGR, “a remarkable rate for a $227 billion dollar industry.”
WORLDWIDE HIGHLIGHTS
USA
IBM Corp., Sony Corp., and Toshiba Corp. have extended their multiyear agreement for 300mm-90nm/65nm process technologies to include development for the 32nm node and beyond. Research and development will be done at Albany NanoTech and IBM’s facilities in Yorktown Heights, NY, with manufacturing at IBM’s 300mm fab in East Fishkill, NY.
Williams Advanced Materials Inc., a Buffalo, NY-based provider of cleaning and reconditioning services, has agreed to acquire privately held Cerac Inc., a provider of physical vapor deposition equipment and specialty inorganic materials, for $25 million.
Industry pioneer and co-founder of GCA Corp in 1958, James E. Gallagher passed away on February 7. He was Semi president and chairman of the board of directors from 1978-1980 and contributed to a better understanding of US-Japan trade relations.
ASIAFOCUS
Photronics Inc., Brookfield, CT, plans to begin construction in 2H06 on a new photomask fabrication facility in South Korea, to support R&D and volume production of photomask technologies for semiconductors using 65nm- and below process technologies.
Sharp is investing 15 billion yen (~US $131 million) to increase production capacity of liquid-crystal display panels at its plant in Kameyama, Mie Prefecture, by nearly 20% to 2000 panels/day.
Fujitsu Ltd. said it will spend 120-130 billion yen (US $1.05-$1.15 billion) to build a new semiconductor plant in Mie Prefecture, extending its 300mm capabilities to 65nm CMOS logic. Construction will begin in early FY06, with initial production of 10,000 wafers/month slated for July 2007.
EUROFOCUS
A group of 14 chipmakers, universities, and research institutes are exploring ways to control leakage currents in CMOS designs below 65nm. The CLEAN project, supported by 4.5 million euros (~US$5.5 million) from the European Commission, aims to develop new leakage power models, design methodologies and techniques for leakage control, and prototype EDA tools to automatically perform portions of the design work.
Soitec, Bernin, France, has signed a $150 million deal to supply silicon-on-insulator wafers to AMD, extending a $50 million pact signed in 2005. The agreement is part of a multiyear contract to supply 200mm and 300mm silicon-on-insulator wafers.
Addendum
The January 2006 Chemical/Chemical Handling column, “Differentiating tools and techniques for liquid flow control,” did not list Celerity or McMillan as suppliers of LFCs, along with other suppliers. Liquid-flow control challenges are much broader than just managing slurry flows, and different LFM/LFC technologies provide unique advantages for different liquid flow applications. Some new LFM/LFC products are included in the New Products section starting on p. 62.