Global chip device sales will decline by about 3% in 2006

December 19th, market research firms The Information Network said, compared to 2005, the global chip equipment sales will decline by 3% in 2006.

The Information Network also said, then the global semiconductor market in 2007 will reach 23.5% growth rate in 2008 reached a growth rate of 31%.

However, the global semiconductor market is still in a downward trend, the global chip sales compared to the same period last year in the fourth quarter of 2005 decreased by 19%. According to the The Information Network said, while the global chip device sales revenue from the third quarter of 2005 continued to decline by 13%.

The market research firm said that the use of global semiconductor equipment only 20% of 2000 is 300 mm wafer and semiconductor device chip, most use 200 mm wafer chip.

The Information Network company said, the use of semiconductor equipment in 2004 Global 60% are 300 mm wafer chip, while in 2005 this figure rose to 70%.

And other market research companies have given different views. According to market research firm Gartner's recent survey shows that in 2005 the global semiconductor product sales will reach $235 billion, an increase of 6.9% compared to 2004. The Gartner company sales forecast for 2005 global semiconductor is slightly higher than the U.S. semiconductor industry association (SIA) last month forecast of $228 billion, but lower than the predicted another market research firm iSuppli company made $237 billion 300 million.

Like iSuppli, Gartner also predicted in 2005 the world's largest three chip manufacturers still were Intel, Samsung Corp and TI company, their market share were 15%, 7.6% and 4.4%. AMD market share of 2.4%, ranking in, compared with 2004 increased. Gartner said that AMD's sales in 2005 were 13.7% higher than last year, and Intel was up by more than last year by about $14.3%.