March-09 witnessing some symptoms of semiconductor industry recovery

The brave semiconductor industry looks to be bouncing back. There are few positive signs of semiconductor market recovery. TSMC, Chartered and UMC fabs have started receiving fresh orders and are increasing the fab utilization rate. There are reports that some of these fabs have received order from AMD for 55nm graphic processors.

The other notable recovery symptoms include,
Taiwanese consumer semiconductor makers have posted some growth in revenues, is also a welcome sign.
Chinese telecom firms are on shopping spree with special trips to Europe by offering millions of worth orders for semiconductor chips.

March has also seen at least one interesting product release i.e. thin and sleek laptop Adamo from Dell. Samsung and Moser Baer have launched MP3 players for Indian market.

The semiconductor equipment market is still declining, but at a slower rate. Provided the chip industry picks up the equipment market growth will follow.

However this is not at all enough to declare the worst is over. To confirm recovery, industry may have to wait another quarter to see some major growth results from the actions taken by governments around the world to boost the economy.