Investment in semiconductor fabs is drying up like drought hit lakes

Semiconductor industry's present situation is comparable to a drought-hit planes. It's a drying market. January of 2009 is worse than December of 2008. Slump in PC sales and mobile phones sales are the biggest reason.
According to Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), the three-month average of worldwide sales of semiconductors dropped by 28.6 percent in January 2009 to $15.33 billion, compared to sales of $21.47 billion in January 2008.

When the chips sales are down, so is the effect on semiconductor equipment. Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) organization has said in its latest press release, year 2009 spending on worldwide fabs equipping front-end facilities is expected to hit the lowest levels since 1994.

However it's not going to be a continuous bad story, Intel has planned multi billion dollar investment to build new advanced fabs in U.S. It might be followed by AMD and few more of top 10 semiconductor vendors. Emerging economies like India and China are also the regions giving importance to investment in semiconductor fabs.

The problem with the semiconductor industry is lack of proper market analysis and estimation tools. Most of the market research reports keep changing their predictions now and then with their prediction mostly being wrong. Ironic is that, these same chips are used (indirectly in PCs) to analyze, research and predict the markets of various product segments and services all over world. But if we see the way DRAM market and such memory market's slump and growth, it's as worst as vegetable or fish market. During 1995-97, there were reports saying, total semiconductor will reach 300 billion US$ by 2000, forget 2000, even by 2008 it has not reached even closer.

However one thing is true, semiconductors are engines of future technologies. Simple examples like electric cars, total replacement technology for papers, and solar energy harvesting can make semiconductor industry cross 300 billion US$ any time sooner.

The lakes are surely going to be full with fresh water, keep your own analysis rather than relying on those expensive market research analysis reports.

A few trigger points are enough to fuel the growth. Environment friendly mass consuming technologies are very-very important.