Predicting the next wave of semiconductor growth

Semiconductor market growth is difficult to forecast due to it being a volatile industry, combining two variables; unit volume and price per unit; both can change rapidly, in accordance both to industry crashes and the economic conditions. Even though unit volume, the price of silicon area shipments can be predicted with some amount of certainty, and silicon revnue is constant, why is the industry forecast less than the calculated prediction?

New applications
The advent of new applications, spawn new markets, and in turn have spurts of growth rates in accordance with their life cycles. So if new applications disrupt industry forecasts, how can these individual applications have their future growth predicted to understand the market?

This is where Mentor Graphics has used the Gompertz Curve mathematical model to understand the growth spurts and maturity of application life cycles within the semiconductor industry. The Gompertz Curve is a model which creates a prediction based on the growth percentage being fastest at the start of the application life cycle, and slowest at the end. The data of product life cycles is integrated into this model to predict future growth rate.

Where are we in the life cycle of traditional semiconductor markets?
Mentor Graphics has tested the model on previous markets, not only to test if it works, but also to understand the current semiconductor market.

Predictions
Below are some of the predictions for the life cycles of current and emerging applications.