Analyst announces the end of the semiconductor downturn

The semiconductor market has bottomed out a quarter earlier than expected, says CEO Malcolm Penn of Future Horizons. In Penn’s calculations, the market would contract 5 percent sequentially in Q2, but instead, the Semiconductor Industry Association reported 6 percent growth quarter-on-quarter. As a result, Penn has trimmed his original 22 percent contraction for the year to a shrink of about 10 percent. This matches the prediction of other market research firms, who started off less bearish but have been growing more pessimistic as the year progressed.