Machine-vision/imaging market growth forecast

MARCH 3--Market-researcher In-Stat/MDR (Scottsdale, AZ; www.instat.com) forecasts that the worldwide merchant market dollar shipments of customer-specific, cell-based designs containing blocks of embedded field-programmable gate arrays will increase from $2.9 million in 2001 to $603.1 million by 2006, a compound annual growth rate of 191.6%.

International Biometric Group (New York, NY; www.biometricgroup.com), in its Biometric Market Report 2003--2007, finds that global 2002 industry revenues of $600 million are expected to reach $4.04 billion by 2007, driven by large-scale public-sector biometric deployments, the emergence of transactional revenue models, and the adoption of standardized biometric infrastructures and data formats.

Market-researcher Frost & Sullivan (San Jose, CA; www.frost.com) reports that innovations in three-dimensional (3-D) imaging technologies used with computed tomography, magnetic resonance, angiography, and ultrasound modalities in the US 3-D imaging market generated revenues worth $397.6 million in 2002; the market is likely to reach $1.15 billion in 2009.

Gartner Dataquest Inc. (San Jose, CA; www.gartner.com) reports that the worldwide semiconductor packaging and assembly market rebounded 7% in 2002 to $26.7 billion. It forecasts that this market will increase 10.5% in 2003 to $29.6 billion. The semiconductor assembly and test segment of the packaging market is estimated at $8.2 billion in 2002, up from $7.14 billion in 2001. Continued growth is expected in 2003.

According to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA; San Jose, CA: www.sia-online.org), global semiconductor sales reached $12.68 billion in November 2002, a 1.3% sequential increase from the $12.51 billion in revenues reported in October 2002. Chip sales rose 5.8% in November 2002 in the European market and 1.3% in Asia Pacific, but fell slightly by 0.8% in the Americas and by 0.6% in Japan.