February 8, 2012
David Pfaff, President, Plastronics Socket Company
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David Pfaff, President, Plastronics Socket Company
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By this time every
year, 2011 reports and 2012 forecasting reports from all the major
semiconductor forecasting companies are available, and paint a bleak picture
the next two years.
After 1% growth in 2011, most are predicting low
single digit growth for 2012. If the semiconductor industry, which is one
of the most innovate and capital intensive industries in the world sees little
growth year over year for multiple years, the business model will be
drastically altered in the future.
In fact, if revenue numbers come in
around $300b in semiconductor sales in 2011, this means since the year 2000,
the industry has a 4% annual growth rate (with some pretty massive
swings). With this means more cost cutting measures to meet bottom line
pressures of Wall Street coupled with continual capital and R&D spending to
grow top line revenue.
Additionally, as the top 20 semiconductor
companies battle for a stagnant pie, expect to see more consolidation and
acquisitions of smaller companies that have strongholds in growing niche
markets.
For our specific area
of the industry, package burn-in and test, we expect to see a continual push
into smaller, denser packaging. For single die packages, this means finer
pitch down to .3mm. For multi-die, stacked die, and TSV die, this means a
greater emphasis on bare die testing.
Development needs to continue to
find the right cost models that support full functional test and burn-in for
bare die. Depending on the segment of the market, contacting units need
to have a stable, low resistance contact over 100,000s of cycles and also
support multi-GHz signal speeds. This is not an easy (or inexpensive)
task for making contactors for die pads on sub 150 micron spacing.
David Pfaff, President
Plastronics Socket Company
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