Chips sales climb 48 percent from year ago By Bloomberg News August 3, 2000, 5:30 p.m. PT

URL: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200-2429261.html

Worldwide semiconductor sales rose 48 percent to a record $16.6 billion in June from a year earlier, as demand increased for mobile phones, digital set-top boxes and other devices, an industry group said.

The Asia-Pacific region grew the fastest, with a 52.8 percent gain, the Semiconductor Industry Association said. Sales climbed 48.1 percent in Europe, while the U.S., Canada and Latin America grew a combined 42.7 percent. Japan's sales rose more than 50 percent. In June 1999, worldwide semiconductor sales were $11.2 billion.

Intel, the world's biggest chipmaker, and others have had a hard time in recent months meeting demand for chips for mobile phones and personal computers, as more consumers buy the devices for wireless communication and Internet access.

Today, Kulicke & Soffa Industries, the No. 1 maker of semiconductor-assembly equipment, warned that delayed orders may hurt profit this quarter and next. Kulicke & Soffa shares fell as much as 39 percent, though chairman Scott Kulicke said he doesn't see a slowdown in semiconductor growth. The warning hurt the shares of other semiconductor-equipment makers on concern that chip sales could be starting to wane.

The market for flash-memory chips, which retain information after the power in a device is turned off, more than doubled from a year ago. Mobile phones and other handheld electronic devices use flash to store information such as numbers and email addresses. Intel, STMicroelectronics and Advanced Micro Devices are among makers of the chips.

Digital signal processor sales rose 51 percent. Texas Instruments, Lucent Technologies and Motorola are among the biggest makers of these chips, which act as the high-speed brains of cell phones.

The market for field programmable logic chips also more than doubled from a year earlier. The chips, manufactured by companies such as Xilinx and Altera, are used in wireless phones and fiber-optic networks. They're typically cheaper to operate because they can be upgraded without having to be replaced.

-- CPR (buytexas@swbell.net), August 04, 2000

Answers

Well, this tidbit makes my friggin day......

-- KoFE (your@town.USA), August 04, 2000.

The end of last year there was a shortage of computer chips and inventories were depleted from all the ones needed to replace the non-compliants. Those sales are history, inventories have been re-stocked, and new sales are declining. The main thing keeping the market strong is the demand for more cell phones.

-- (get.your@facts.straight), August 04, 2000.

YOU get YOUR facts straight. The amount of chips bought for Y2k was miniscule vs. the vol. made.

Report is from C/Net. URL: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200-2429261.html But of course, you, the anon. poster on a web forum know far more than the company that stands behind this report. Which said company is being sold in the multi-billions of dollars.

-- cpr (buytexas@swbell.net), August 05, 2000.