Motorola Inc’s capital spending plan assumes a 17% to 21% compound annual growth in worldwide demand for semiconductors over the next five years, Tom Beaver, director of sales and marketing for Motorola’s computer segments, told the conference. The company plans to raise capital spending to $4,500m this year from $3,300m in 1994, he said, and half of that will go towards expanding semiconductor fabrication capacity. He sees semiconductor demand doubling in five years, commenting It took 40 years for the semiconductor market to get to $100,000m: the forecast is that it will take five years to get to $200,000m. Growth will be driven by two trends – that more and more types of appliances, entertainment devices and industrial equipment have chips in them and that the number of chips within each device is rising. One key semiconcutor market for Motorola is wireless phones and communicators, which he sees growing to $27,000m in 2000 from just $1,000m in 1990. Automotive and personal computers are other major markets, he said.
