Right now, there appears to be marginal improvement in ICs, but it's still too early to see a full-blown chip recovery. Still, the signs are somewhat positive amid the downturn: Another market researcher has raised his IC forecast, while Diodes, Microchip, Mindspeed, TI and others this week increased their respective outlooks. And the foundries are seeing robust growth in the second quarter.

All told, IC demand is improving--albeit slowly. Independent semiconductor market statistician Mike Cowan has revised his 2009 semiconductor annual market estimate to $192.5 billion, which would be equivalent to a market contraction of 22.6 percent. In May, Cowan said the 2009 semiconductor annual market would hit $182.1 billion, which would be equivalent to a market contraction of 26.8 percent.

Cowan, who works with actual monthly global semiconductor sales numbers gathered and published by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization, uses linear regression analysis of historical data to produce a forecast of worldwide semiconductor sales looking forward over the next five quarters.

Based on the data, there is good and bad news in store for the market. ''With this month's momentum indicator moving into very high, positive territory bodes well relative to a possibly relative strong recovery in sales over the near-term,'' Cowan said.

''As mentioned last month this monthly indicator bears continued watching over the coming months in order to monitor the trend in this indicator -- possibly verifying that the present very positive trend is highly suggestive that a 'turning point' in the industry's near term sales is real and will be sustained,'' he said. ''However, next month's (May 2009) predicted sales forecast estimate is projected to be $14.686 billion which would represent a year-over-yearr monthly sales growth of minus 27.5 percent -- not very encouraging relative to sustainability of a sales improvement trend if the model's May 09 sales forecast is born out.''

Indeed, there are mixed signals among various companies. Texas Instruments Inc. Monday (June 8) increased its sales and earnings targets for the second quarter, thanks to what an executive said was strength across many products lines, particularly analog ICs.

TI (Dallas) said it now expects second quarter sales to be between $2.3 billion and $2.5 billion, an improvement from earlier guidance that called for sales to be between $1.95 billion and $2.4 billion.

''TI provided a solid mid-quarter sales and EPS update, exceeding our prior estimates,'' analyst Doug Freedman of Broadpoint AmTech. ''Utilization rates rose above initial plan as internal inventory correction is largely behind the company.''

The March quarter represented a hard bottom at about mid-30 percent. ''Strength in analog represents a mix shift tailwind as the analog gross margin runs above company average,'' he added. ''TI has more room for improvement. It is shipping below end-demand levels (resales continue to exceed sell-in rates into the channel), suggesting that order trends will likely exceed seasonality in upcoming recovery quarters. Additionally, an upcoming recovery in America and Europe should provide further upside.''

Others are seeing improvement. Microchip Technology Inc. (Chandler, Ariz.) provided financial guidance for the first quarter of fiscal 2010 ending June 30, 2009. Net sales are expected to be up between 8-to-10 percent from the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009 ended March 31, 2009.

In the first quarter of fiscal 2010, earnings per diluted share on a GAAP basis are expected to be approximately 12 to 13 cents, excluding any mark-to-market adjustment on the value of our trading securities.

During its earnings conference call on May 7, 2009, Microchip did not provide any financial guidance for the quarter ending June 30, 2009, but disclosed that its internal plan for the quarter was for net sales of $182 million, or up approximately 5 percent from the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009.

''Our total backlog position has continued to grow throughout the quarter. Both our direct and distribution businesses have performed well. Geographically, Asia has shown the most strength while Europe has been the weakest,'' said Steve Sanghi, Microchip's president and CEO, in a statement. ''We are increasing wafer starts in our fabs as we expect to achieve quarter end inventory that approximates our internal target of 115 days.''

Another company is also seeing renewed demand. Diodes Inc. (Dallas), a supplier of application specific standard products within the broad discrete and analog semiconductor markets, increased its guidance for the second quarter of 2009.

Due to continued improvement in demand and order rates, primarily in Asia, the company is raising its previous guidance and now expects second quarter revenue to increase 22 to 30 percent over the first quarter revenue versus the prior guidance of 14 to 22 percent.

Meanwhile, Mindspeed Technologies Inc. (Newport Beach, Calif.), a supplier of semiconductor solutions for network infrastructure applications, updated to its business outlook for the third quarter of fiscal 2009.

The company now expects revenues in the third quarter of fiscal 2009 to be in the range of $32.0 million to $33.0 million, excluding any potential patent sales. The company's previous guidance for third fiscal quarter revenue was to be in the range of $30.0 million to $32.0 million.

The revision in guidance is attributable to strength in all three of the company's businesses, multiservice access (MSA) or voice-over-IP (VoIP), high-performance analog (HPA) and wide area networking (WAN). The company continues to experience better than expected 3G wireless infrastructure and fiber-to-the-building (FTTB) customer demand in China, as well as growth in crosspoint switch solutions.