Global semiconductor companies may experience a slower 6 percent annual growth in sales during the decade ending in 2010, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman Morris Chang (張忠謀) said yesterday.
Chang, speaking at the annual International Solid-State Circuits Conference in Philadelphia, added that the annual growth rate was 16 percent before 2000.
Last month, TSMC chief executive Rick Tsai (蔡力行) forecast that the semiconductor industry would this year experience 4 percent to 6 percent growth, compared with 8 percent to 9 percent last year.
TSMC, the world's biggest contract chipmaker, had previously claimed it would outperform the rest of the semiconductor industry. But Tsai said the company no longer expected this would be the case.
Chang said that contract chipmakers such as TSMC would seek to expand into new markets and offer diverse technologies.
Sustaining growth and profits were the major challenges facing contract chipmakers, he said.
Chipmakers could find new opportunities in the fields of memory, analog, high-performance-logic, image-sensor applications and CMOS logics, Chang said.
TSMC said NOR-type flash memory chips would represent a mid-single-digit percentage of its revenues this year.
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