Peter Clarke EE Times (12/01/2009 8:04 AM EST)

LONDON — Bruce Diesen, analyst with Carnegie ASA (Oslo, Norway), has raised his forecast for the 2009 chip market, for the second month in a row. Carnegie asserts the market will still be down but the shrink will be less than Carnegie previously predicted.

"We now expect a 10 percent drop in world semiconductor dollar sales this year — the old estimate minus was 12 percent — and a 13 percent increase next year versus the old estimate of 11 percent," said Diesen after figures for October were published by the Semiconductor Industry Association.

This is the second upgrade by Diesen and Carnegie in successive months. Only one month ago Diesen was predicting the chip market would contract 14 percent in 2009 and grow 11 percent.

The chip market strength was across the board. "Handset chips were strong, with strength in low-end handsets and smartphones. Chips for automobile and industrial applications showed a strong improvement. Memory chips were strong, with Windows 7 boosting DRAM demand and smartphones boosting NAND memory," said Diesen.