The first half of 2018 started out with strong quarterly year-over-year growth for the IC market, however, 3Q year-over-year IC market growth dropped to 14%.

Moreover, with the softening of the memory market, IC Insights projects that year-over-year IC market growth in 4Q will be only 6%.

 

Figure 1

Third quarter sequential growth confirms the slowing year-over-year trend.

In 2017, 3Q/2Q IC market growth was 11%.

This year, 3Q/2Q growth slowed to a 6% increase (the same rate as the long term average).

As mentioned, the softening memory market has started to become a “headwind” on total IC market growth.

It is interesting that in 2017, the 3Q/2Q memory market growth rate was a very strong 18%.

In contrast, the 3Q/2Q memory market increase in 2018 was 8%, less than half of last year’s rate.