Semiconductor industry

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The semiconductor industry is the collection of business firms engaged in the design and fabrication of semiconductor devices. Once semiconductors became a viable business around 1960, following the first laboratory transistors, rapid technological advances have been the keynote of this economic trend, and the industry has been one of a handful crucial to drawing the broad outlines of late 20^th-century economic history.

However, the U.S. industry faces challenges to development by some forms of government regulation. The U.S. government regulates exports and certain uses of some types of semiconductors due to their potential use in military applications. These restrictions can inhibit worldwide growth of the industry.

Philips semi-CEO Frans van Houten said that the worldwide semiconductor industry is worth about 213 billion (USD or Euros?) per year. http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=26974

Based on KPMG report it will be a 260 BN (USD or Euros?) market in 2009. The major players in this segment are Intel, Samsung, Texas Instruments, ST Microelectronics, NXP, Freescale, Infineon etc.^{[citation needed]}