Archive for August, 2018
Tuesday, August 28th, 2018
Flash memory is forecast to represent the largest share of capital spending while DRAM capex grows at the highest rate this year.
IC Insights forecasts total semiconductor capital expenditures will rise to $102.0 billion this year, marking the first time that the industry has spent more than $100 billion on capital expenditures in one year. The $102.0 billion spending level represents a 9% increase over $93.3 billion spent in 2017, which was a 38% surge over 2016.
Figure 1 shows that more than half of industry capital spending is forecast for memory production—primarily DRAM and flash memory—including upgrades to existing wafer fab lines and brand new manufacturing facilities. Collectively, memory is forecast to account for 53% of semiconductor capital expenditures this year. The share of capital spending for memory devices has increase substantially in six years, nearly doubling from 27% ($14.7 billion) in 2013 to a forecast of 53% ($54.0 billion) of total industry capex in 2018, which amounts to a 2013-2018 CAGR of 30%.
 Figure 1 (more…)
Tags: Analog, DRAM, Flash/NV, foundry, Foundry Market, IC manufacturing, ICManufacturing, McClean Report, MPU, Semiconductors
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Monday, August 20th, 2018
Samsung extends its number one ranking and sales lead over Intel to 22%.
IC Insights released its August Update to the 2018 McClean Report earlier this month. This Update included a discussion of the top-25 semiconductor suppliers in 1H18 (the top-15 1H18 semiconductor suppliers are covered in this research bulletin) and Part 1 of an extensive analysis of the IC foundry market and its suppliers.
The top-15 worldwide semiconductor (IC and O-S-D—optoelectronic, sensor, and discrete) sales ranking for 1H18 is shown in Figure 1. It includes seven suppliers headquartered in the U.S., three in Europe, two each in South Korea and Taiwan, and one in Japan. After announcing in early April 2018 that it had successfully moved its headquarters location from Singapore to the U.S. IC Insights now classifies Broadcom as a U.S. company.
 Figure 1 As shown, all but four of the top 15 companies had double-digit year-over-year growth in 1H18. Moreover, seven companies had ≥20% growth, including the five big memory suppliers (Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron, Toshiba/Toshiba Memory, and Western Digital/SanDisk) as well as Nvidia and ST.
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Tags: boadcom, ICManufacturing, Infineon, McClean Report, MediaTek, NVIDIA, NXP, qualcomm, samsung, Semiconductors, SK Hynix, ST, TI, toshiba, WD/SanDisk
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Tuesday, August 14th, 2018
Mega-mergers become less likely because of the high-dollar value of major acquisitions, increasing scrutiny from regulators, rising protectionism among more countries, and growing global trade frictions.
The demise of Qualcomm’s pending $44 billion purchase of NXP Semiconductors in late July along with growing regulatory reviews of chip merger agreements, efforts by countries to protect domestic technology, and the escalation of global trade friction all suggest semiconductor acquisitions are hitting a ceiling in the size of doable deals. It is becoming less likely that semiconductor acquisitions over $40 billion can be completed or even attempted in the current geopolitical environment and brewing battles over global trade.
IC Insights believes a combination of factors—including the growing high dollar value of major chip merger agreements, complexities in combining large businesses together, and greater scrutiny of governments protecting their domestic base of suppliers—will stifle ever-larger mega-transactions in the semiconductor industry in the foreseeable future. Figure 1 ranks the 10 largest semiconductor merger and acquisition announcements and underscores the growth in size of these M&A transactions. Eight of the 10 largest announcements occurred in the last three years with only the biggest deal (Qualcomm buying NXP) failing to be completed.
Figure 1
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Tags: Altera, ARM, Broadcom, Burr Brown, Freescale, ICManufacturing, intel, Linear Technology, McClean Report, NXP, qualcomm, samsung, SanDisk, Semiconductors, toshiba
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Thursday, August 9th, 2018
With 24% IC marketshare, DRAM expected to account for nearly one in four IC sales dollars spent.
IC Insights recently released its Mid-Year Update to The McClean Report 2018. The update includes a revised forecast of the largest and fastest-growing IC product categories this year. Sales and unit growth rates are shown for each of the 33 IC product categories defined by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization in the Mid-Year Update.
The five largest IC product categories in terms of sales revenue and unit shipments are shown in Figure 1. With forecast sales of $101.6 billion, (39% growth) the DRAM market is expected to be the largest of all IC product categories in 2018, repeating the ranking it held last year. If the sales level is achieved, it would mark the first time an individual IC product category has surpassed $100.0 billion in annual sales. The DRAM market is forecast to account for 24% of IC sales in 2018. The NAND flash market is expected to achieve the second-largest revenue level with total sales of $62.6 billion this year. Taken together, the two memory categories are forecast to account for 38% of the total $428.0 billion IC market in 2018.
 Figure 1
For many years, the standard PC/server MPU category topped the list of largest IC product segments, but with ongoing increases in memory average selling prices, the MPU category is expected to slip to the third position in 2018. In the Mid-Year Update, IC Insights slightly raises its forecast for 2018 sales in the MPU category to show revenues increasing 5% to an all-time high of $50.8 billion, after a 6% increase in 2017 to the current record high of $48.5 billion. Helping drive sales this year are AI-controlled systems and data-sharing applications over the Internet of Things. Cloud computing, machine learning, and the expected tidal wave of data traffic coming from connected systems and sensors is also fueling MPU sales growth this year.
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Tags: Analog, DRAM, Forecast, ICManufacturing, McClean Report, MPU, NAND, Spcl Purp logic
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