Booming mobile devices sales will boost foundry business, says Applied CEO
Reconsiders outlook as sales of mobile devices look positive
The semiconductor foundry business is to drive demand as mobile device popularity continues to boom, according to Applied Materials CEO Mike Splinter.
Former Intel man Splinter said that rising demand for smartphones, ultrabooks and other mobile devices would support growth in the semi industry, filling the pockets of foundries such as TSMC, GlobalFoundries and Samsung.
Despite lowering its own growth forecasts recently, Splinter said that the outlook for chip equipment manufacturer Applied and the semi market as a whole was fairly optimistic, according to Digitimes.
Splinter has previously outlined the challenging conditions in the market, with economic factors slowing demand for chips. However he now appears more optimistic for the industry as sales of mobile devices show no signs of letting up.
Splinter also mentioned that there is a lack of visibility of the changes that will occur to the chip industry supply chain as manufacturers move towards 18 inch wafer production. 18 inch wafers will mean manufacturers can increase the amount of chips significantly for little extra. Applied is part of an industry consortium to speed up the transition to the new technology.