科技英语新闻:Tablet and e-reader chip sales skyrocket in 2010: report

SAN FRANCISCO, April 5 (Xinhua) -- The appeal of tablet computer and electronic-book reader (e-reader) has been giving a boost to semiconductor market as sales of chips for such devices surged in 2010 and keeps growing, market research firm International Data Corp. (IDC) said on Tuesday.

A new IDC report showed that worldwide revenues for media tablet and e-reader semiconductors grew by over 2,000 percent to 3. 3 billion U.S. dollars in 2010 as semiconductor suppliers enabled original equipment manufacturers to bring new products to market less than 8 months after Apple Inc. launched its iPad tablet.

According to IDC's definition, media tablets are devices with color displays larger than 5-inch and smaller than 14-inch, running lightweight operating systems and able to be based on either x86 or ARM processors.

"The opportunity for semiconductors in media tablets and e- readers has exploded and semiconductor suppliers are scrambling to bring to market semiconductor and software platforms to enable these products," Michael Palma, a senior research analyst at IDC, said in a statement.

Looking forward, IDC said it expects media tablet and e-reader semiconductor revenues to grow by 120 percent year over year in 2011, predicting that the market will be boosted by the arrival of a new version of Google Inc.'s Android operating system, dual core processors and increased bandwidth.

"For the next several years, we will see rapid innovation cycles for products launched into the marketplace and semiconductor suppliers will continue to satisfy evolving end user requirements over the coming years," Palma noted.