warns housing-bubble threatens semiconductor manfacturers

EETimes.com - House-price bubble set to hit semis, warns analyst
interesting point... but there isn't much that wouldn't be effected by a housing crash.
ugh!

Malcolm Penn, chief executive of market analysis firm Future Horizons, warned that a house-price boom that has taken hold across the developed world is set to be biggest bubble in global economic history. When it bursts it will almost certainly trigger a collapse of the semiconductor market, just as the stock market bubble of 2000 did, Penn said.
[...]
"If the economy slows, however, it WILL take the semiconductor market with it," Penn wrote. "It will cause demand for boxes to drop, and with it chips, which means automatic overcapacity, a collapse in ASPs, and a global market slowdown, the extent of which will be governed by how much the economy slows."

Penn added that current restraint in fab building by the chip makers should allow the industry to accommodate a moderate slowing in demand without a major crash, provided this triggers further conservatism in capital expenditure.