Taiwan's integrated circuit industry is expected to outperform global growth in output value in 2016 because of the country's strong wafer foundry and IC design segments, a Taiwanese research institute said Friday.

The output of Taiwan's IC industry is expected to grow 2.4 percent in 2016 from a year earlier to NT$2.31 trillion (US$68.75 billion), according to the Industrial Technology Research Institute's Industrial Economics and Knowledge Center (IEK).

That will exceed the 1.7 percent year-on-year average growth forecast for the global semiconductor sector, the IEK said.

The foundry sector in Taiwan is expected to grow 6.5 percent year-on-year to NT$1.07 trillion in 2016, also outperforming the world's average, according to the IEK.

The leader in the sector is Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world's largest wafer foundry operator with a more than 50 percent share of the global market.

The IEK expected the growth in three other IC-related sectors in Taiwan to beat global growth in their respective fields.

Taiwan's IC design sector is expected to see its output value grow 4.6 percent from the previous year to NT$620.2 billion, the local IC packaging business is expected to grow 2.3 percent year-on-year to NT$317 billion, and the IC testing segment should grow 3.5 percent from a year earlier to NT$136 billion, the IEK said.

The local memory chip sector, however, is expected to see its production value fall 22.3 percent year-on-year in 2016 to NT$171.5 billion, reflecting falling product prices, the IEK said.

Dragged down by the sharp decline in memory chip output value, the local IC manufacturing sector as a whole is expected to post only 1.3 percent year-on-year production value growth in 2016, the IEK said.

In 2015, the production value of Taiwan's IC industry rose 2.8 percent from a year earlier to NT$2.26 trillion, beating the world's average of a 0.2 percent decline, the IEK said.

Last year, the local IC manufacturing segment was the best performer in Taiwan's semiconductor industry with annual output growth of 4.9 percent.

The production value of the IC design segment grew 2.8 percent in 2015, while the output of the IC packaging and testing segments fell 1.9 percent and 4.7 percent, respectively, the IEK said.

By: DocMemory
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