Chip Industry "Pretty Close" to Bottom

The vicious beating the semiconductor industry has taken this past year is nearly over. But it will be three years until it recovers–and even that prediction is an optimistic one. So says Morris Chang, Chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSM), who tells The Wall Street Journal that the chip industry is “pretty close” to the bottom. Said Chang, “I think it will be 2012 before the total revenue of the semiconductor industry gets back to the ’08 level.” If that’s the case, then 2012 cannot come too soon. After the ghastly quarters companies like TSMC and Intel (INTC) have been reporting lately, investors may not be able to take many more of these precipitous drops in revenue.