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In figure 1 the blue line represents 2000, the peak semiconductor revenue year. The green line is 2001 revenue, note how 2001 starts in-line with 2000 and then in April drops down (the beginning of the downturn). The orange line for 2002 starts in-line with 2001 and then in July begins to show some improvement (the beginning of the recovery). The purple line for 2003 shows recovery over 2002 every month with the fourth quarter showing significant progress towards recovering back to 2000 levels. Finally, the grey squares are 2004 revenue, with January through July showing growth over the year 2000 peak, although the growth has moderated as the year progresses and July has fallen back almost to year 2000 levels..
In 2003 the worldwide semiconductor market totaled $166.4 billion dollars made up of $140 billion dollars in ICs and $26.4 billion dollars in discretes. For 2004 we have been forecasting IC revenue growth to be over 40% reaching $202.5 billion dollars! Assuming lower growth for discretes of say 15%, the total semiconductor industry would reach $233 billion dollars, 40% growth. This is greater growth than other forecastors are predicting but our modeling of unit growth and capacity made us believe that utilization would be flat in Q1 and then climb the rest of the year driving up ASPs at the same time that unit volume is growing. In fact utilization rose slightly in Q1 and rose again in Q2. Recent record high oil prices and softening overall demand has us concerned that our forecast may now be too aggressive. We will watch August results very carefully for continued softness.
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