2012 chip market to grow 7%, says analyst

LONDON – Growth in the semiconductor market will accelerate in the second half of 2012 and achieve an annual percentage figure of 6 to 7 percent, according to Mali Venkatesan, research manager for semiconductors at International Data Corp.

As large companies with cash in hand vie for competitive positions, mergers and acquisitions will continue to be trend, he said. A number took place in 2011 including: Qualcomm's acquisition of Atheros, Texas Instruments buying National Semiconductor, Conexant falling to SMSC, Broadcom's capture of Netlogic, CSR-Zoran and Microsemi-Zarlink. Also a number of startups were taken up in the recent past inluding Icera by Nvidia and Picochip by Mindspeed.

IDC reckons that 2011's global chip market was worth $301 billion up 3.7 percent from 2010.


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