Alan Patterson, EETimes
4/14/2016 10:27 AM EDT
TAIPEI — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world’s largest foundry, expects that it will emerge from an industry slowdown sometime during the second half of this year.
The company, which dominates the foundry business with a 54.3% market share, faces overall sales growth in its business segment that slowed to 4.4% in 2015 from 16% in 2014, according to market research firm Gartner Inc.
Foundries have led growth in the semiconductor industry, yet have faced slowing sales resulting from excess IC inventory, poor demand for mobile and computing products and slumping tablet demand. TSMC said its year-on-year sales growth will probably not rebound until the latter half of 2017, driven by demand for high-end smartphones.