Printable Version

Report Includes:

• 19-month Horizon of the Worldwide IC Cycle

• 7-month Horizon of Worldwide IC Sales (provides finer granularity)

• Regional forecasts of IC Revenues: North America, Europe, Japan, and Asia-Pacific

• Non-Memory Worldwide IC Shipments Cycle Forecast

• Executive Summary

• Analysis of Forecast and Actual Industry Sales Behavior

• Recovery Index

• Complimentary Industry Statistics Reports - Semiconductor Equipment and/or ICs (view list)

Your Competitive Advantage:

• Optimize manufacturing load with fewer adjustments (forecasts aren’t modified retroactively)

• Manage inventory to increase turns and eliminate write-offs

• Plan capacity more accurately

• Manage business based on facts (forecasts exclude opinions and extrapolations)

• Purely Quantitative Forecast Model (*)

• Top-down forecast to counterbalance other sources

Each monthly issue contains the Worldwide IC Cycle Forecast and our interpretation of what the forecast is predicting. Our quantitative models generate a forecast of the theoretical Underlying Demand for ICs. Actual IC shipments follow a direction so as to converge with the Underlying Demand. Even a slight negative change in the slope of Underlying Demand has the potential to start a major recession and vice versa (e.g. Q3-2000). See Historical Performance.

Sample Charts:

The chart below shows the correlation between Advanced Forecasting’s Turning-Points Forecast and Worldwide IC Revenues (source: WSTS). As a rule, actuals oscillate around the forecast of Underlying Demand. A deviation of significant magnitude triggers a correction.

Advanced Forecasting’s forecast line (red) is overlaid on actual industry data (blue) as published by WSTS. Our analysis of the interaction between the two lines supplies our clients with the information essential to business decisions --The Turning-Points.
Inset – Shows the forecast as it was published until 1998. Note that the forecast line was higher than Actual IC shipments during the 1996 and the 1998 recessions and lower during the 1995 overheated period.
Current View – Shows the forecast as it is currently published. The forecast’s vertical scale (Y2) was expanded to obtain a better fit during the 2000 over-heated period. Hence, the current position of the forecast line overstates the 1995 over-heating and the 1997 recovery.
Legend:
(1) Underlying Demand is forecasted to slow down. (2) Actuals overheat in comparison to Underlying Demand, (3) resulting in a build up of capacity and inventory, triggering an early and steep collapse. (4) Actual are significantly below Underlying Demand, therefore, they will increase in order to converge with Underlying Demand (forecast was provided). (5) From that point on, actuals increased and converged with the predicted demand.

Advanced Forecasting’s Recovery Index is a coincidental leading indicator, providing alerts at the times at which the IC industry enters a recession, reaches the lowest point of a recession, and returns to a normal rate of growth. The index objectively confirms the occurrence of a major change in direction, reassuring decision-makers of this event, and shortening their delay in response to change.  

Analysis over the past 20 years shows that the IC Recovery Index accurately forecasted the Turning Points of five major recessions and announced three times that the IC Industry would enter a localized recession.

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