Now that we are moving out of 1Q10, I surveyed the numerous research, market and financial analysts as well as the major company forecasts.  These data show that semiconductor growth trends are holding despite the fact that there continue to be undercurrents of concern in global unemployment levels, GDP questions, continued housing slumps, and individual countries' budgetary, monetary and fiscal problems (e.g., Greece, potential Chinese bubble, US employment and various credit problems remaining).  See the following for some of the publically available sources consulted: EETimes here, here and here, DigiTimes 2/25/2010, 3/8/2010, 3/10/201, and 3/19/2009, iSuppli here, here and here, and at Purchasing.com, here; other sources were used but are not publically available.

Chip demand and electronics purchases are also holding and seemed to have been steady during the past couple of quarters, especially important as we exit holiday months.  The lean inventory throughout the electronics supply chain reinforces that the growth numbers are based on real demand and needs based on pent up fab equipment requirements due to past CAPEX cuts, increased IC demands across many sectors (especially memory, both DRAM and NAND), and improving corporate demands, along with continued consumer purchasing holding at modest but positive levels.

All in all, the forecasts for growth during 2010 and 2011 are based on solid, valid foundations, rooted in well grounded data, trends and multiple data sources from macro- and micro-economic and market data sets.  There are other problems and dips and upswings ahead based on geo-economic shifts occurring but overall, the course is valid (see MarketWatch Quarterly's ongoing series for more economic details; the Americas is the next geo-economic region to be covered in the upcoming Quarterly, due out next month!).