2012 semiconductor capital equipment spending to drop 19.2% warns Gartner

The analyst cites excess electronics inventory and poor demand as a result of the unstable economy as the cause. Klaus Rinnen, managing vice president at Gartner, warned that the slowdown appears to across the board. "While it appears the foundries will continue their capacity race at 28nm, spending on 45 to 90nm technologies is slowing and some equipment from those technology nodes is being used for 28nm production to help increase capacity utilisation," he said. "Due to weaker than expected growth in the production units of media tablets, NAND spending has softened slightly as well." Gartner forecasts that the slowdown will last well into the first half of 2012, by which time supply and demand will be more in balance. As a result, the analyst says DRAM and foundry will need to begin to increase spending to meet an increase in demand as the pc market rebounds and consumers begin spending. It believes the next growth year will be 2013, with a projected capital spending growth of 18.4%.