Not many industries are as consistently volatile as semiconductors. Year after year for decades, working in this industry has been akin to regularly climbing aboard an adults-only, furiously fast, roller-coaster journey.
During the past decade, the industry has gone through wild ups and downs in supply and demand. In the months leading up to the September 11 terrorist attacks, semiconductor company chip inventories were overflowing because of widespread anticipation of strong demand. After that event, many semiconductor companies dramatically scaled back chip production. It was a tough time to survive. Predicting demand has been one of the industry’s thorniest problems for decades. Companies consistently build too much inventory or not enough, and often at the wrong times.