European semiconductor distribution grows 13.2% in Q2

"It is apparent that distribution is coming back to a more moderate path after several quarters of dynamic growth and allocation," said DMASS chairman Georg Steinberger. "With almost 23% growth for the first half of 2011 and a record result, the outlook for the total year is still very positive." The main areas of growth were said to come from Central and Eastern Europe, with growth in the latter up 31.1% to €241million. UK growth was up by 6.3% to €138m. "No difference to what we have seen for a few years, Eastern Europe has become the growth driver, primarily through production transfer," noted Steinberger. For the major product areas, DMASS reported over proportional growth in flash memories (25.6%), mcus (23.5%), power (22.7%), other logic (21.6%), standard analogue (16.4%) and small signal (15.3%). Declining areas were said to be programmable logic (-3.1%), dsps (-3.7%) and drams (-10.5%). Steinberger concluded: "From a product perspective, it again shows that distribution gains pace in design intensive areas like power, analogue and mcus and becomes less dependent on either singular technologies or commodities."