The strengthening of the U.S. dollar versus other major world currencies throughout 2015 is taking a toll on the semiconductor industry, among others, and is forecast to lead to contraction in worldwide chip sales for the year. According to a new report by market research firm IC Insights Inc., the strengthening of the dollar versus the euro, yen, won and Taiwan dollar is expected to deflate the worldwide semiconductor sales growth rate by 3 percentage points in 2015, resulting in a sales decline of 1% compared with 2014.