KUALA LUMPUR (Apr 15): The demand for transistors on integrated circuits is set to grow exponentially going foward, according to the US-based Semiconductor and Materials International (SEMI).

In a statement on its website yesterday in conjunction with the fiftieth anniversary of one of the business world’s most profound drivers, now commonly referred to as Moore's Law, it said demand had enabled the circuit industry to grow to US$366 billion (RM1,362 billion) per annum.

Meanhile, the semiconductor equipment and materials industry is worth US$82 billion (RM305 billion).

In April 1965, Gordon Moore, later co-founder of Intel, observed that the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits would continue to double every year.

SEMI, the global industry association serving the nano- and micro-electronic manufacturing supply chains, said the enabling contributions made by the over 1,900 SEMI member companies in developing semiconductor equipment and materials that produce over 219 billion integrated circuit devices and 766 billion semiconductor units per year.

It said 50 years of Moore’s law had led to one of the most technically sophisticated, constantly evolving manufacturing industries operating today.

It said that every day, integrated circuit (IC) production now does what was unthinkable 50 years ago.

SEMI president and chief executive Denny McGuirk said it was SEMI member companies that enabled Moore’s Law’s incredible exponential growth over the last 50 years.

“Whereas hundreds of transistors on an IC was noteworthy in the 1960s, today over 1.3 billion transistors are on a single IC.

“SEMI member companies provide the capital equipment and materials for today’s mega-fabs, with each one processing hundreds or thousands of ICs on each wafer with more than 100,000 wafers processed per month,” he said.