By 2008, the market is expected to clock up revenues of almost 300 billion dollars, Gartner analysts said at a technology seminar here.

"This year we feel is a good year," said Gartner managing vice president Andrew Phillips.

"The word 'good' is what we would associate with industry growth of above 20 percent," he said, referring to the US research house's projected 25 percent rise in semiconductor revenues this year.

This would be the best showing in four years for the industry, whose fortunes are vulnerable to any slowdown in consumer spending, especially in the United States, the world's biggest economy.

Last year, chip revenues rose 14 percent after a gain of two percent in 2002, with the industry recovering some of the ground lost when the dotcom bubble burst in 2000, leading to a more than 30 percent fall in 2001 sales.

This year's expected stellar performance is driven mainly by booming demand from Asian electronics manufacturers who are seeing their biggest orders in recent times for almost everything, including mobile phones, computers, laptops and wireless gizmos.

The Asia Pacific excluding Japan is expected to buy almost 90 billion dollars worth of semiconductors this year -- up from 71 billion dollars last year -- with the figure seen to grow to at least 135.5 billion dollars in four years' time, Gartner said.

In percentage terms, the region will account for 46 percent of global semiconductor consumption by 2008, up from 41 percent this year.

China, the world's electronics factory workshop, will be the main driver behind Asia's emergence as the biggest buyer of semiconductors, Gartner said.

"As expected (from) what we see over the last few years, China is expected to lead the whole Asia Pacific market growth," said Philip Koh, Gartner's regional semiconductor analyst.

"Based on this forecast period (2004-2008) ... China will capture almost 50 percent of the Asia Pacific market and that is a huge market growth we are seeing.

"We are expecting China to continue to drive the whole semiconductor market in Asia."

By 2008, China will account for 20-22 percent of the world chip market, Koh said.

Sales of semiconductors in China are estimated at almost 40 billion dollars this year and should increase to nearly 66 billion dollars in 2008.

Trailing behind are South Korea and Taiwan, which both used to dominate the market, until the emergence of China as the preferred manufacturing site for global electronics firms, Gartner said.

Gartner's optimistic outlook for the sector mirrors similar projections from US-based Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) early this month at a seminar held here.

SEMI president and chief executive Stanley said Myers said the sector was in another up cycle after three difficult years.

SPACE.WIRE