Gartner adjustable semiconductor equipment spending high 06 year forecast

Gartner, a market research firm, predicts that capital spending on back-end semiconductor devices will grow stronger than expected, and that the company will raise its forecast for 2006 to $38 billion 800 million in capital expenditure on semiconductor devices, up from $14.3% in 2005. Gartner in December last year is expected in 2006 semiconductor equipment capital expenditures increased by 8.4%. The company's semiconductor manufacturing and design research vice president Klaus Rinnen said that in the fourth quarter of 2005, the capital expenditure of semiconductor devices to reach the lowest point in the first quarter of 2006 has rebounded.

Market consulting firm VLSI Research also announced on Wednesday that it will raise the capital expenditure forecast for semiconductor devices in 2006, its growth rate will rise from 6% to 13.2%.

Gartner analysts expect the next peak in the capital expenditure cycle of semiconductor devices in 2008, will reach $54 billion 800 million in 2009 and 2010 to enter the cycle of decline.

Gartner expects global manufacturing equipment capital expenditures will reach $28 billion 900 million in 2006, an increase of 11.2% over 2005. Since December, the capital expenditures budget of the top 20 semiconductor manufacturers increased by $6 billion 300 million, about $4 billion for memory manufacturing, in response to increased demand for DRAM and NAND flash devices.

Rinnen said that although some suppliers will be strategic investment in 2006, but most semiconductor manufacturers have been very cautious about investment, and will continue to invest cautiously. In the memory sector, as the manufacturing capacity of second tier DRAM manufacturers has increased substantially, we see reports of increased capital spending plans.

Gartner expects capital expenditures for wafer fabrication equipment to increase by 3.7% to $29 billion 900 million in 2007, an increase of $40 billion 600 million to $35.5% since 2008. Gartner expects capital expenditure on wafer fabrication equipment to fall 10.4% in 2009, down by 2010 at $5.7%.

Gartner expects packaging and assembly equipment capital expenditures to grow by 19.8% in 2006, spending more than $5 billion worldwide. For each region, Gartner expects the Asia Pacific region in the next five years will strengthen the dominant position in the field of packaging and assembly, by 2009 the region will occupy all packaging and assembly equipment sales of 75%.

Rinnen said that due to the impact of raw materials and pending ROHS regulations, production is relatively tight.

Gartner's long-term forecast that the packaging and assembly equipment market will grow by 12.3% in 2007, an increase of $about 7000000000 in 2008, reaching $25.1%, then fell by 19.3% in 2009, down by 10.7% in 2010.

Automatic test equipment (ATE) market is expected to rebound from 21% in 2005 fell on the basis of an increase of 29.2% in 2006. Current ATE sales growth is mainly driven by system level chips (SoC) and flash based storage device testing. Long term forecast ATE equipment capital expenditures will grow 27.2% in 2007, an increase of $14.6% in 2008, reaching $7 billion 100 million. Gartner expects ATE spending will decline 20.3% in 2009, in 2010 and then fell by 32.1%, down to $3 billion 800 million.