Taipei, May 20, 2008 (CENS)--Taiwan`s IC (integrated circuit) design sector posted production value of NT$9.16 billion for the first quarter of the year, down 8.9% from a quarter earlier but up 9% from a year earlier, according to statistics compiled by TSIA (Taiwan Semiconductor Industry Association).

Worth mentioning is that as analog IC design companies have continuously worked out and mass produced new products, the sector scored a sharp annual growth of between 30% and 40% in sales revenue in the first quarter.

Taiwan`s IC industry, including IC design, production, packaging and testing, posted a total of NT$342.8 billion in production value for the first quarter, down 8.9% from the fourth quarter of last year but edging up 0.4% from a year earlier. In substance, IC design, packaging and testing sectors all saw production value grow in the quarter from a year earlier, except the IC production sector.

TSIA noted that Taiwan`s IC packaging and testing sectors are expected to score a total of NT$252.5 billion in output value this year, growing 10.7% from a year earlier, due partly to their long-term operation deployment in China and partly to an influx of orders from world`s major IDMs (integrated device manufacturers).

In the year, production value of Taiwan`s IC testing sector alone is estimated at NT$111.8 billion, surging 9.3% from last year, thanks to increasing orders from large-sized companies of memory products as well as rising selling prices of the products worldwide.

As to the IC design sector, suppliers of LCD (liquid crystal display) drive IC chips were not affected by seasonal recessions too much in the first quarter, as global demand for large-sized display panels didn`t slip as sharply as that for small-sized display panels.

Despite U.S.`s sub-prime-mortgage crisis, PC IC designers enjoyed growing sales of IC chips for notebook PCs in the first quarter, because of increasing popularity of notebook PCs featuring low price, lightness and full-fledged functions in the world.

However, consumer IC designers were heavily hurt by the sub-prime-mortgage turmoil, which weakened consumer spending worldwide. Also, memory designers suffered sharp drops in selling prices of memory products and posted lower-than-expected sales performance in the first quarter of this year.
(by Steve Chuang)