Worldwide semiconductor sales saw a boost in July, growing 2.2% year-over-year from July 2006 and 3.2% from June sales to US$20.6 billion, according to a report released by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA).
The SIA attributes growth mainly to increases in sales of microprocessors, MOS logic devices, and NAND flash memory products. At the same time, the SIA reiterated its earlier forecast of 1.8% growth for the semiconductor industry this year.
"Prices climbed slightly in several large segments of the semiconductor market, and price erosion in the memory sector slowed significantly in July as unit shipments grew, contributing to a sequential increase in worldwide chip sales," SIA president George Scalise said. "Unit sales of microprocessors grew by nearly 5% from June while average selling prices (ASPs) increased by a bit more than 3 percent."
And although memory prices are still struggling, the SIA reported that declines were not as drastic during July as they had been. "While ASPs for DRAMs continued to decline, price attrition slowed to less than 2% from June," Scalise added. "NAND flash unit shipments were essentially flat with the prior month, but ASPs were up by more than 8% and total revenues from NAND flash products grew by nearly 8% from June."
After a brief scare in which tech stocks took a plunge along with the rest of the economy, the SIA said that the larger issues in the worldwide stock market are not having a lingering effect on the semiconductor sector after all. "At this stage, it does not appear that the fall-out from problems in the sub-prime mortgage arena has had a significant impact on consumer purchases of electronic products. This is a concern that bears watching going forward," Scalise added.