SIA forecasts 21% growth in 2000, 20% in 2001

02/01/2000

SAN JOSE, CALIF. - The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) has recently announced its predictions for industry growth. SIA forecasts that 2000-2001 growth rates will exceed 20 percent, part of a strong surge in growth overall from 1999-2002. The trade group predicts that the worldwide semiconductor industry will grow 15 percent with sales topping $144 billion in 1999, marking the first sustained period of growth since 1995. Sales are expected to surge 21 percent to $174 billion in 2000. Continued growth of 20 percent should push the industry beyond the $200 billion mark in 2001, followed by modest 12 percent growth to $234 billion the next year.

The association expects that the global logic market, which includes standard cell, gate array and programmable logic devices, will grow at a swift pace based on network infrastructure and video game demands. Metal oxide semiconductor logic should reach $27 billion and 20 percent growth in 2000 and $32 billion at 18 percent growth in 2001. By 2002, this should be a $37 billion market, at a 16 percent increase.

Driven by telecom, digital signal processors (DSPs) are growing at nearly twice the rate of microprocessors. From 2000 to 2002, the SIA predicts DSPs to grow at least 30 percent each year.

"This is the first cycle in recent history where microcontrollers are growing faster than microprocessors," says Brian Halla, chairman, president and CEO of National Semiconductor Corp. Microcontrollers should grow 27 percent to $18 billion in 2000, 25 percent to $22 billion in 2001 and 18 percent to $26 billion in 2002.

The SIA anticipates that growth in microprocessors will be slow by historical standards because of a maturing PC market, as growth rates slow from the high teens to the low teens in the next few years. Embedded applications are expected to gain importance; they currently represent 50 percent of all units, but only 15 percent of dollars in this category. Microprocessors should grow 17 percent to $32 billion in 2000, 14 percent to $40 billion in 2001 and 13 percent to $42 billion in 2002. The association expects solid dual random access memory (DRAM) growth of 30 percent for the next three years. DRAM sales should rise 39 percent to $25 billion in 2000 and 44 percent to $37 billion in 2001, before slipping back down to 5 percent growth to $38 billion in 2002.

In terms of markets, the SIA forecasts that the Americas will grow 21 percent to $56 billion in 2000, 21 percent to $68 billion in 2001 and 11 percent to $76 billion in 2002. While markets in Europe and Japan will steadily grow to between $48 and $50 billion by 2002, the Asia Pacific market is expected to grow vigorously; the association predicts that this region will grow 23 percent to $43 billion in 2000, 25 percent to $53 billion in 2001 and 14 percent to $61 billion in 2002.