EDACafe: IC Insights

IC Insights

Archive for February, 2020

Semiconductor Units To Rebound, Exceed 1 Trillion Devices Again in 2020

Thursday, February 27th, 2020

Though rising 7%, total semiconductor units forecast to fall short of all-time record.

Annual semiconductor unit shipments, including integrated circuits and optoelectronics, sensors, and discrete (O-S-D) devices are forecast to rise 7% in 2020 and surpass one trillion units for the second time in history, based on data presented in the new, 2020 edition of IC Insights’ McClean Report—A Complete Analysis and Forecast of the Integrated Circuit Industry, released in January 2020.

The 7% increase to 1,036.3 billion total semiconductor shipments expected in 2020 follows an 8% decline in 2019 and 7% growth in 2018, the year that semiconductor shipments reached 1,046.0 billion units—a record high that is expected to remain in place through at least this year (Figure 1). Starting with 32.6 billion units in 1978 and ending in 2020, the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for semiconductor units is forecast to be 8.6%, an impressive annual growth rate over 42 years, given the cyclical and often volatile nature of the semiconductor industry.

Figure 1

(more…)

No Comments »

Revenue per Wafer Rising As Demand Grows for sub-7nm IC Processes

Friday, February 21st, 2020

Despite high development costs, using smaller nodes yields larger revenue per wafer.

The success and proliferation of integrated circuits has largely hinged on the ability of IC manufacturers to continue offering more performance and functionality for the money. Driving down the cost of ICs (on a per-function or per-performance basis) is inescapably tied to a growing arsenal of technologies and wafer-fab manufacturing disciplines as mainstream CMOS processes reach their theoretical, practical, and economic limits.

Based on data presented in IC Insights’ new edition of The McClean Report (released in January 2020), many IC companies are now designing high-performance microprocessors, application processors, and other advanced logic devices based on 10nm and 7nm process technology. Some of the current iterations from logic and foundry suppliers are shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1

(more…)

No Comments »

Five Semiconductor Companies Hold 53% of Global Wafer Capacity

Tuesday, February 11th, 2020

Leaders in memory IC and foundry production maintain strongest capacity presence.

IC Insights recently released its new Global Wafer Capacity 2020-2024 report that provides in-depth detail, analyses, and forecasts for IC industry capacity by wafer size, process geometry, region, and product type through 2024.

Included in the report is a ranking of the 25 largest wafer capacity leaders in terms of monthly installed capacity in 200mm-equivalents as of December 2019. The world’s top-five wafer capacity leaders each had capacity of more than 1,000,000 wafer starts per month (Figure 1). Combined capacity of the top five companies represented 53% of total global wafer capacity at the end of 2019. In contrast, the top five capacity leaders in 2009 held 36% of worldwide capacity. Capacity at other semiconductor leaders, including Intel (817K wafers/month), UMC (753K wafers/month), GlobalFoundries, Texas Instruments, and STMicro, fell off rapidly from the top five.

(more…)

No Comments »

Acquisition Rebound Lifts 2019 to Third-Largest M&A Year

Monday, February 10th, 2020

Seven major semiconductor acquisition agreements valued at $1 billion or more increase the total value of all deals by 22% from the previous year, continuing the strong wave of M&A and consolidation among chip suppliers.

Semiconductor merger and acquisition activity strengthened in 2019 after pulling back in the two previous years from historic high levels of M&A agreements in 2015 and 2016. More than 30 semiconductor acquisition agreements in 2019 had a combined value of $31.7 billion, which was a 22% increase from $25.9 billion in 2018, according to data compiled by IC Insights in its new 2020 edition of The McClean Report—A Complete Analysis and Forecast of the Integrated Circuit Industry. The 2019 value of semiconductor acquisition agreements reached the third-highest annual total ever, but the year was still far behind 2015 and 2016 (Figure 1).