The SIA released November sales estimates for the semiconductor industry on Monday. The table in that report is shown below. The press release highlights that it’s the first month of year-on-year growth since the downturn began in 2008. That’s a great milestone but there’s also a couple of other interesting tidbits here. First, it’s close to a record month in the semiconductor industry with the run rate returning to a >$250B/ann level. More interesting to me, however, is the quarter on quarter progression that the November sales show, >18% according to the table. That should auger well for the outcomes of this quarter for most companies in the industry as that, by definition, means that the average semiconductor company should report a 15% or greater growth from the September ending quarter.

SIA November 2009 Sales Estimate

Semiconductor Industry Revenue

That’s not quite what the industry guided to, however …

Xilinx and Altera, both broadly exposed geographically and across application segments did revise guidance in December, guiding guided to up 16-20% and up 15-18% respectively … so they’re consistent with the predicted average. Intel, however, provided guidance in the up 6-8% range in their October earnings release and did not modify that guidance when they provided an update in November. Looking at a couple of other large semiconductor companies guidance:

• Broadcom – revised from flat in their October earnings release to up 5% in a mid-Dec release
• Nvidia – Guiding up 2% in their October earnings release
• Texas Instruments – Revised guidance in early December to flat to up 5% from their October guidance of down 3% to up 5%

Hmmm … I’d say that INTEL, Broadcom, Nvidia and TI are all fairly comfortable in their guidance. I expect that we might see a few more pre-announcements and revisions here shortly as well. And I’d also say, that Altera and Xilinx might actually be outgrowing the industry … but we’ll have to wait and see on that one.