Year 2009 is not that bad for memory chip makers and 2010 going to be even better

The global semiconductor market is estimated to be down by around 10% in 2009 compared to 2008. Though year 2009 started with a steep fall in revenues, but in the 2nd half of 2009 the revenue curve started tilting upward, bringing lot of cheers to the whole of electronics industry. In 2009 most of the growth has come from personal computer markets both portable and desktop. The other segment contributed to the growth includes solar, military/defense and medical electronics.

The PC market recovery has helped processor and PC chipset manufacturers to have less fall in revenue, but the major gainers were DRAM and flash memory semiconductor vendors. Except Qimonda, most of the DRAM makers have reported growth in revenues sequentially and year-o-year basis in 3Q2009.

When the PC market has not picked up good-growth for 2 years, continuously, it can be easily estimated to have excellent growth in the 3rd year. That's what can happen in first half 2010. If that happens Memory chips will be short of supply triggering price hike and revenue growth.

DRAM vendors have started rising CAPEX to move to advanced nodes and to increase production capacities. More mature and better prepared compared to previous times.