Semiconductor inventories steady, says Jewell

Despite alarm about the state of semiconductor inventories, particularly from the foundries, Bill Jewell’s Semiconductor Intelligence says that: “Semiconductor inventories appear to be under control throughout the semiconductor device supply chain.”

At the semiconductor manufacturers inventory ratios have been stable for eighteen months, says Jewell

Exceptions are Intel and Qualcomm where lower revenues caused Intel’s inventory ratio to go from 29% in Q2 2014 to 37% in Q2 2015 while Qualcomm’s ratio went from 24% to 41% in the same period.

Jewell then looked at users, taking six of the top eight purchasers of semiconductors. None showed any significant change in inventory rate compared to this time last year.

So how about the disties? Jewell finds that the inventory ratio at Arrow and Avnet has been close to 40% for the last eight years.

Finally there are the EMS companies where Jewell surveyed Jabil, Sanmina, Flextronics and Celestica. He finds that the EMS inventory ratio hit 55% in 2007 and has been “fairly steady” since, with a rise in 2011 to 57% from a 50% ratio in 2011.