"If the current trends continue, there is upside potential for 2010 growth above our November forecast of $242.1 billion, but a growing global economy driven by consumer purchasing will be key to sustaining these trends," says SIA President George Scalise.
With a DRAM market expected to increase 74% this year, market researchers at IC Insights now believe that the worldwide IC market will jump 27% in 2010 to $253 billion – exceeding the previous high of $234 billion reached in 2007 – and an additional 15% in 2011 to $290 billion. The market research company said too that if the January DRAM market stayed flat for the next 11 months, the 2010/2009 DRAM market would still register 61% growth.
If there's ever been a period in the design chain where cost and time-to-market haven't been major factors, it's faded into distant memory. As engineers continue to pursue the best design solutions in the quickest way possible, distributors are stepping up their embedded systems support to help ease some of the pressure.
Claiming that HTC Corp. infringed 20 patents related to the Apple iPhone user interface, underlying architecture and hardware, the Cupertino, CA-based computer and mobile phone maker filed a lawsuit against the Taiwan-based mobile handset producer with the US ITC and US District Court in Delaware.
Lack of customer demand has put a deal inked last year on hiatus between the two chip industry giants that was to have covered the porting by the Santa Clara, Calif-based chipmaker of its Atom processor CPU cores to the Taiwanese foundry's technology platform, contrasting with TSMC's announcement last month that it was speeding construction of new fabs and capacity expansions at existing fabs to meet what it described as "urgent recent increases in customer demand."