After dropping by 15% last year, the worldwide IC market is expected to show single-digit growth in 2020, even with the disastrous effects of Covid-19 on the global economy.
IC Insights will release its 200+ page Mid-Year Update to the 2020 McClean Report later this month. The Mid-Year Update revises IC Insights’ worldwide economic and IC industry forecasts through 2024 that were published in The McClean Report 2020, released in January.
Figure 1 shows the 1Q/4Q IC market direction indicator that IC Insights developed 23 years ago.
Figure 1
From 1984-2019, the average seasonal sequential decline in the 1Q IC market was 2%. In 1Q20, the IC market was down just 3% as compared to 4Q19, slightly below the 36-year average. Excluding the years after the severe IC industry downturns of 1985 and 2001, IC Insights believes that the 1Q/4Q sequential quarterly IC market change is a good indicator of the direction and intensity of the annual IC market change.
