The hottest semiconductor competition makes chip e

The semiconductor competition will continue the hot consolidation of chip equipment

the global semiconductor industry will continue to usher in another year of prosperity. Not only chip manufacturers in the semiconductor field are ready to seize the opportunity to make big money, but capital equipment manufacturers that actively lock in this year's and subsequent overweight investments will be in a more favorable position. This is the view expressed by industry analysts in a thematic discussion at the semiconductor West

Pierre ferragu, an analyst at New Street research, a market research institution, pointed out that artificial intelligence (AI) and other major changes in the semiconductor industry have laid the foundation for the technical war, but the final result is unpredictable

ferragu said, "but in the war, the number of more gears makes the size of parts Limited. One party always wins the battle, and it must be an arms dealer. In our industry, chip manufacturing equipment companies are arms dealers."

industry analysts predict that due to the continuous strong demand and price rise of memory chips, the semiconductor industry is expected to grow by more than 15% this year, and may exceed $500billion for the first time in 2019, and the test curve and test plan information are displayed in the query results; The sensor of the tensile testing machine is set to the module level. Market observers including Ajit manocha, President and CEO of semi, predict that global chip sales will exceed $1billion annually in the next 7 to 10 years

semi's thematic discussion on seeing through the Bulls bears is the highlight of the semiconductor West conference, which has been held for more than 20 years. With the participants emphasizing the huge demand created by AI, IOT and other emerging technologies, this year's thematic discussion interaction is more exciting. They predict that the consolidation trend following the industrial progress in the past few years will continue, while the drastic cyclical changes in the semiconductor business since its inception will gradually slow down

cj muse, senior director and analyst of evercore ISI, said, "this cyclical change will gradually calm down." Muse pointed out with dram as an example that even if the price of DRAM continues to rise, Samsung Electronics has postponed the capital expenditure of DRAM capacity expansion, which is the inevitable process of China's plastic industry, for one to two quarters. "I have never seen such a situation in my time on Wall Street - suppliers cut capital expenditure at the peak of the cycle." Muse said he had been observing the industry for 25 years

srini pajjuri, Senior Semiconductor analyst at Macquarie capital, warned that the business cycle was inevitable. But he added that in recent years, the major recession trend in the semiconductor field has changed dramatically. "In the past, we used to think that negative growth was about a cycle a year. Now, the latest cycle occurred in the second half of 2014."

the tide of consolidation continues to burn...

although regulators have strengthened the review of some acquisitions in the semiconductor field in recent months, members of this thematic discussion expect that the large-scale consolidation of the semiconductor industry will continue

mark edelstone, director of Morgan Stanley, said, "we may still be in the third round of this consolidation in which the prices of cathode materials, ternary materials and lithium cobalt oxide have risen sharply." He said that the biggest reason why consolidation continues to occur is that the growth rate of various devices is lower than in the past, and the cost increases exponentially, especially in the process of 7 nanometers (nm) and below

edelstone said, "without economic scale, it is difficult to find a market."

he added that the current regulatory environment is difficult to master, and many people are surprised by the decision of U.S. President Donald Trump to block the sale of Qualcomm to Broadcom, as well as his decision to block the sale of lattice semiconductor to some Chinese equity companies for national security reasons. He added that the most disturbing thing is that the decision of the Ministry of Commerce to approve Qualcomm's acquisition of NXP continues to be postponed, which seems to be at least partly due to political factors

but edelstone said he fully expected the era of super integration to continue. "At least in the meeting room of the board of directors of the company we attended, we have never heard anyone say that mergers and acquisitions should not be carried out due to regulatory risks." He added that the board of directors of the company even hoped to further understand and analyze the risks involved. "My view is that most M & A transactions will continue."