Chip industry will grow by seven percent next year

CHIP FOUNDRY TSMC has been consulting its crystal ball and has come to the conclusion that either the global semiconductor industry will grow by seven per cent in 2011 or it will meet a tall dark stranger in dim bar in Old Taipei.

If the chip industry does grow, TSMC's Morris Chang thinks that his outfit will see compound annual growth rate of 4.2 per cent during the period from 2011 through 2014.

According to Digitimes, Chang thinks that the chip industry has entered the last part of an S-shaped curve that is a period of maturity and steady growth.

Chang said that the world's designers, manufacturers and tool suppliers needed to collaborate on the development of "More Than Moore['s Law]" advanced technologies as a new engine of growth.

He predicted that the overall chip industry will return to the 2008 level in 2011, earlier than his original forecast that the sector might not stage a full recovery until 2012.

For 2010, Chang has predicted that the global semiconductor industry will expand by 18 per cent, with growth in the chip foundry business outperforming the industry average. µ