Printed Circuit Design & Fab Online Magazine - Market News

Market News

TAIPEI – Taiwan's exports swelled 21.9% year-over-year to $24.2 billion in October on strong demand for electronics.

SHANGHAI – China next year will increase export tonnages for silver, tungsten and antimony, but cut the quota for tin from 21,000 tonnes in 2010 to 18,900 tonnes in 2011.

CAMBRIDGE, MA – The printed electronics market is forecast to reach more than $50 billion over the next 10 years, with photovoltaics, display technologies and logic (memory and transistors) representing the largest segments.

Printed electronics’ impact could be big on everything from low-cost solution-processed thin-film photovoltaics and OLED lighting, to e-paper displays and thin-film batteries, IDTechEx says.

Investments are being made in process technologies such as deposition of small molecules in a vacuum, OLED and LED production facility and novel material substrates, the firm added.

SAN JOSE -- The 90-day moving average worldwide semiconductors sales reached $26.5 billion in September, up 2.9% sequentially and 6.1% year-over-year, the Semiconductor Industry Association reported today.

LOS ALTOS, CA – After a rare two-year drop in global communications equipment production, hardware OEMs are headed for a strong rebound this year.

BEIJING – China will reduce rare earth export quotas 30% next year to protect its precious metal supplies, the China Ministry of Commerce said.

China already cut 2010 production and export quotas 72% for the second half to 7,976 tons, based on ministry data.

If the current rate of production holds steady, medium and heavy rare earths reserves could dry up within 15 to 20 years, an anonymous spokesperson says, according to published reports. China produces 95% of the world supply.

Domestic deposits fell to 27 million tons by the end of last year, 30% of the world's total explored reserves, down 37.2% compared to levels in 1996.

The US holds an estimated 15% of the world's reserves, but relies on imports.