Semiconductor & Technology Specialist, Ingenuity

William Keating

Dr. William Keating is a highly experienced senior executive with over 25 years experience in the IT/Semiconductor Industry. The majority of Dr. Keating's career was spent at Intel Corporation where he held senior leadership positions in Europe, the US and Asia from 1992 through 2014. He served as Intel's IT Director for APAC, China & Japan from 2005 through 2014 when he was based in Hong Kong and was responsible for the IT systems (Infrastructure, Networks, Data Centres, ERP, Sales & Marketing systems, Business Intelligence etc. ) for all of Intel's offices & factories through the region. From 1998 through 2005, he was the founder & director of an internal IT Consulting Organisation (IT Flex Services), a 500-person team which remains a core part of the Intel IT Organisation to this day. Dr. Keating's first 6 years at Intel were spent in charge of the Factory Automation Systems (Robotics, Databases, Networks, Servers, Clients etc.) supporting Intel's then state-of-the-art 200mm factory network. Since leaving Intel in 2014, Dr Keating established his own Technology Research & Consulting Company (www.ingenuity.hk) where he focuses on the products, roadmaps & technologies of companies such as Intel, AMD, Samsung, Apple, Micron- as well as the key equipment suppliers to those companies e.g. ASML, AMAT, Canon, Nikon etc. Dr. Keating specializes in niche topics of high significance within the semiconductor industry. These include the future of Moore's Law and in particular the significance of Lithography in maintaining Moore's Law (EUV, SDA, NanoImprint), the role & growth of the GPU in specialised applications such as Deep Learning (Neural Networks) for Voice, Image & Pattern recognition at companies such as Facebook, Google & Baidu. He also holds regular discussions on the future of memory, in particular the rise of 3D NAND and the emergence of new memory technologies such as 3D Xpoint.

Semiconductor & Technology Specialist

2017 Global Semiconductor Sales Reach A Record $412.2 Billion.

Global Semiconductor Sales Increase 20% YoY in April, 2018 Forecast Revised Upwards

Worldwide Semiconductor Sales To Grow 9.5% In 2018

Global Semiconductor Sales Up 20% YoY in Q1 2018

Ingenuity

Our focus is exclusively on in-depth research & consulting in the broader semiconductor industry. We focus on the key players, namely Intel, Micron, Qualcomm, Apple, Samsung, NVIDIA, AMD, TSMC & Global Foundries - as well as some of the lesser known, but nonetheless critical, companies such as ASML (for EUV), Mellanox, Cavium, Xilinx etc. We specialise in their products, roadmaps, process technologies, competitive advantages & threats etc. We also help our clients understand the implications of new and emerging technologies, e.g. 3D X-Point, 3D NAND, Carbon Nanotubes, Autonomous Driving, Graphene, Silicon Photonics, Wafer-Level Optics, Artificial Intelligence, FPGA, GPU, ASIC etc. 

Semiconductor Analysis & Research

Thematic (Sector/Industry)

Brazil Semiconductors and semiconductor equipment / Thematic (Sector/Industry)

Semiconductor sales and silicon wafer shipments are two excellent metrics by which to measure the health of the global semiconductor ecosystem and by both measures, the sector continues to exhibit strong growth with a positive outlook through the remainder of the year. Semiconductor sales are now on track for an increase of 15.7% increase in 2018 with silicon wafer shipments looking likely to maintain last year's growth rate of ~10%.While semiconductor sales growth in 2018 will fall short of the record-breaking 21.6% increase in 2017, much of last year's increase was due to sustained increases in the prices of both DRAM and NAND. We model the true underlying 2017 growth rate for semiconductor sales at around a very healthy 10% and project a similar underlying growth expectation of ~10% for 2018. In spite of our expectations of  prices declines in both DRAM and NAND in through EOY 2018, we still see strong fundamentals maintaining demand for silicon wafers aslo at levels similar to 2017. Indeed, that view is well supported by the recent earnings results and forecasts from the leading silicon wafer suppliers. While there may be growing concern among investors about the durability of the current semiconductor growth cycle, there is little on the horizon for now to suggest anything other than another excellent year for the sector. Indeed, the price reductions already seen in NAND and predicted in DRAM are net positives for the industry, bringing memory supply and demand back closer to balance and, in many cases, serving to boost demand on the back of lower costs. That, after all, is how Moore's Law is supposed to work.

Semiconductor sales and silicon wafer shipments are two excellent metrics by which to measure the health of the global semiconductor ecosystem and by both measures, the sector continues to exhibit strong growth with a positive outlook through the remainder of the year. Semiconductor sales are now on track for an increase of 15.7% increase in 2018 with silicon wafer shipments looking likely to maintain last year's growth rate of ~10%.While semiconductor sales growth in 2018 will fall short of the record-breaking 21.6% increase in 2017, much of last year's increase was due to sustained increases in the prices of both DRAM and NAND. We model the true underlying 2017 growth rate for semiconductor sales at around a very healthy 10% and project a similar underlying growth expectation of ~10% for 2018. In spite of our expectations of  prices declines in both DRAM and NAND in through EOY 2018, we still see strong fundamentals maintaining demand for silicon wafers aslo at levels similar to 2017. Indeed, that view is well supported by the recent earnings results and forecasts from the leading silicon wafer suppliers. While there may be growing concern among investors about the durability of the current semiconductor growth cycle, there is little on the horizon for now to suggest anything other than another excellent year for the sector. Indeed, the price reductions already seen in NAND and predicted in DRAM are net positives for the industry, bringing memory supply and demand back closer to balance and, in many cases, serving to boost demand on the back of lower costs. That, after all, is how Moore's Law is supposed to work. 

Semiconductor Sales & Wafer Shipments Review Q2 2018