Market projection down

Silicon wafer demand fell 36.3% in Q4 of 2008 compared with Q3 due to the financial downturn and global decrease for demand in semiconductors. Gartner believes that current global semiconductor revenue will decline between 24 and 33% in 2009, with wafer demand expected to regain some momentum in the second half of this year. Takashi Ogawa, vice president of research with Gartner's semiconductor manufacturing group, said: "Our latest outlook suggests a temporary rebound in the second half of 2009 and wafer suppliers should be ready for it." Bryan Lewis, research vice president at Gartner compared the current climate with the 2001 recession, in which semiconductor sales plummeted by a record 32.5% and semiconductor sales took about four years to get back to 2000 levels. "The rebound after this recession will be similar to that in 2001," Lewis said, "because there will be three years of modest growth after the worst year. However, we see a difference in year four, where we expect another overcapacity situation for the industry, especially in DRAM because of significant manufacturing investments made in the second and third years of the recovery."