Wafer demand increased 3.8 percent in 2012

USA: Semico released its Quarterly Wafer Demand Summary and Data, and as usual, there is good news and bad news. The good news is, manufacturing yields on 28nm have improved so for the time being, capacity is no longer a constraint in the supply chain.

The bad news is, while holiday sales started off on a high note, they were unable to sustain the growth through the end of the year. Semico believes the slow holiday season, along with a drop in consumer confidence, has encouraged the electronics supply chain to continue to maintain conservative inventories.

If you follow the wafer demand market, then you know it is anything but stable. There is almost a 50-point spread between the peak growth year to the worst year of decline. Even if we throw out the worst year (-23 percent decline in 2001) and the best year (25 percent growth in 1995), the change in wafer demand growth rates still ranges from -2.7 percent up to 24.9 percent.