Semiconductor WEEK: An overview of results and conclusions from recent reports at VLSI.Chip Market Research ServicesMoving higher…• Order activity for semiconductor equipment continued to rise, jumping past 81 degrees • This is turning out to be a hot summer for both equipment suppliers and chipmakers, underlined by strong earnings results in Q2 and a solid outlook for Q3• Visibility for equipment suppliers is extending through Q4 • Despite the world pandemic and a global recession, 2020 will be a very strong year for the semiconductor industry • The IC Forecast for 2020 has been upgraded to +7% from +6% • Equipment forecast will also receive an upgrade in the next monthly update from the current +7%• VLSI’s Chip Price Performance Index slid 0.7 pointsCustomer Satisfaction SurveyWhite Paper: FormFactor strong test & measurement supplierFormFactor, a leading supplier of test and measurement technologies, earns 4½ VLSI StarsSemiconductor AnalyticsLast Week in the Semiconductor Market:Semiconductor sales surged 18% last week, compared to the same week a year ago, as the weather continued to heat up. The DRAM market has formed a strong upward channel since bottoming early this year. Logic sales are picking up steam again. Semiconductor Supply-Demand stayed Tight.Semi Market results from last week: • Semiconductor Sales Nowcast: 3Q20/3Q19: rose to +20% • Semiconductor Weather1 Report: Warm, Hotter• IC Supply-Demand2 Metrics: Tight• Electronics Price Trend: DecliningChip History CenterPeople: Lithography Panel 2004: When immersion lithography was still in R&D and about to burst out into production. The four historic video interviews from Halloween 2004 cover what the leading lithography suppliers were thinking at the time and what results they were getting from early prototype tools coming to market. We always held it near Halloween because lithography barriers were indeed the scariest for the industry.The Chip InsiderStrategy and Tactics: SEMICON West, Hyperinflation, and Economics of Money, Inflation, and the Creation of BothSEMICON West: Keynotes were clearly the highlights in this virtual year of COVID. I know… you thought it was the year of the rat. But this one is virtual. And COVID is a viral — if not virtual — representation of the rat. Like the rat in Chinese culture, COVID must… Since 2 is the lucky number for rats, we are doubly lucky in that there’s 2 twos in 2020 and 2 really groundbreaking keynotes: Gary Dickerson’s and John Kelly’s…Should you be worried about hyperinflation in the U.S. economy? I keep running into people who are deeply concerned about America’s spending, expansion of the money supply, and the threat to inflation it might pose for turning into something like Germany’s hyperinflation. I have some good answers.The Economics of Money, Inflation, and the Creation of Both: None of this is intuitive at all, but as you’ll see, it’s simple, while proving a powerful understanding of how money works in economic systems — and an understanding of what drives the inflation of consumer goods (the kind everyone hates) and inflation of assets (the kind everyone loves, like home and stock prices). We’ll need to walk through a bit of economic theory, so you’ll need to drop your radar defense net based on real-life experience, because this is like jumping to Quantum Physics. But I assure you, like physics, what looks complicated on the surface seems quite simple and beautiful once you understand it… When we’re done, you’ll have a new understanding of chip equipment sales, stocks, oil, gold, and prices for all. I hope you have fun.Semiconductor StocksVLSI's Semiconductor Stock Indices eked out a gain this week while the market jumped, Semiconductor stocks hit a new yearly high.• Semiconductors +1%• Equipment -1%• EDA -0%• Electronic Materials +3%.
was led up 1.4% by UMC, AMD, MagnaChip Semiconductor, and NVIDIA.IDM -2.3%Foundry & OSAT +1.5%Fabless & Fablite +2.7%VLSI’s Semiconductor Equipment Stock Index slipped 0.5%, ASM Pacific Technology came out on top.WFE -0.6%Test -4.1%Assembly +2.7%VLSI’s EDA Stock Index slipped 0.4%.VLSI’s Electronics Materials Stock Index was led up 2.5% by Cabot Microelectronics.Hottest Stocks: UMC, AMD, Cabot Microelectronics, MagnaChip Semiconductor, ASM Pacific Technology, and NVIDIA.
