Semiconductor sales defy energy price rises

Healthy PC and handset sales led to 5.4 percent year-on-year growth in worldwide semiconductor sales in the first half of this year, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association.

Sales in the first half of this year amounted to $127.5bn (£65.2bn), up from $121bn in the same half of 2007. According to a statement from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) on Monday, the growth indicates there has been "little impact" from increasing energy costs on demand for electronic products.

"Continuing strength in international markets — coupled with healthy demand in the US — helped drive higher worldwide sales of semiconductors in June," said SIA president George Scalise on Monday. "Key demand drivers for semiconductors — especially personal computers, which account for 40 percent of semiconductor sales, and mobile phones, which drive about 20 percent of demand — continued to show double-digit unit growth."

However, although semiconductor sales are up, falling memory costs have led to a six percent year-on-year decline in total memory sales, SIA said. According to the association, the cost of 1Gb of DRAM has dropped by 43 percent in the last year, and the price of 2Gb of NAND flash memory has fallen by 61 percent in the same period.

"Lower prices enable increased memory content in consumer devices," said Scalise. "[The manufacturer] Micron estimates that the memory content of the average PC will increase at least 50 percent this year, while the memory content in the average cell phone will increase by more than 150 percent."