Archive for the ‘Mergers & Acquisitions’ Category
Wednesday, September 26th, 2018
Driven by cryptocurrency device demand, TSMC’s China sales are expected to surge by 79% this year.
IC Insights’ September Update to The McClean Report shows that as a result of a 51% forecasted increase in the China pure-play foundry market this year (Figure 1), China’s total share of the 2018 pure-play foundry market is expected to jump by five percentage points to 19%, exceeding the share held by the rest of the Asia-Pacific region. Overall, China is forecast to be responsible for 90% of the $4.2 billion increase in the total pure-play foundry market in 2018.
 Figure 1 With the recent rise of the fabless IC companies in China, the demand for foundry services has also risen in that country. In total, pure-play foundry sales in China jumped by 26% last year to $7.5 billion, almost triple the 9% increase for the total pure-play foundry market. Moreover, in 2018, pure-play foundry sales to China are forecast to surge by an amazing 51%, more than 6x the 8% increase expected for the total pure-play foundry market this year.
Although all of the major pure-play foundries are expected to register double-digit sales increases to China this year, the biggest increase by far is forecast to come from pure-play foundry giant TSMC. Following a 44% jump in 2017, TSMC’s sales into China are forecast to surge by another 79% in 2018 to $6.7 billion. As a result, China is expected to be responsible for essentially all of TSMC’s sales increase this year with China’s share of the company’s sales more than doubling from 9% in 2016 to 19% in 2018.
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Tags: America, Asia-Pacific, China, cryptocurrency, Europe, foundry, Foundry Market, IC manufacturing, Japan, McClean Report, tsmc
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Tuesday, September 18th, 2018
13 IC products forecast to show double-digit growth, led by a 39% surge in DRAM sales.
In its Mid-Year Update to the 2018 McClean Report, IC Insights updated its forecast of sales growth for each of the 33 major IC product categories defined by WSTS (Figure 1). IC Insights now projects that seven product categories will exceed the 16% growth rate expected from the total IC market this year. For the second consecutive year, the DRAM market is forecast to top all IC product segments with 39% growth. Overall, 13 product categories are forecast to experience double-digit growth and 28 total IC product categories are expected to post positive growth this year, down slightly from 29 segments in 2017.
Rising average selling prices for DRAM continued to boost the DRAM market through the first half of the year and into August. However, IC Insights believes the DRAM ASP (and subsequent market growth) is at or near its peak, as a big rise in DRAM capital expenditures for planned capacity upgrades and expansions is likely put the brakes on steep market growth beginning in 2019.
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Tags: DRAM, DSP, IC, IC manufacturing, McClean Report, MCU, NAND, SRAM, wireless comm
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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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Tuesday, July 31st, 2018
Correlation coefficient expected to reach a very high level of 0.95 in the 2018-2022 timeframe.
In its recently released Mid-Year Update to The McClean Report 2018, IC Insights forecasts that the 2018-2022 global GDP and IC market correlation coefficient will reach 0.95, up from 0.88 in the 2010-2017 time period. IC Insights depicts the increasingly close correlation between worldwide GDP growth and IC market growth through 2017, as well as its forecast through 2022, in Figure 1.
As shown, over the 2010-2017 timeframe, the correlation coefficient between worldwide GDP growth and IC market growth was 0.88, a strong figure given that a perfect correlation is 1.0. In the three decades previous to this timeperiod, the correlation coefficient ranged from a relatively weak 0.63 in the early 2000s to a negative correlation (i.e., essentially no correlation) of -0.10 in the 1990s.
IC Insights believes that the increasing number of mergers and acquisitions, leading to fewer major IC manufacturers and suppliers, is one of major changes in the supply base that illustrate the maturing of the industry that is helping foster a closer correlation between worldwide GDP growth and IC market growth. Other factors include the strong movement to the fab-lite business model and a declining capex as a percent of sales ratio, all trends that are indicative of dramatic changes to the semiconductor industry that are likely to lead to less volatile market cycles over the long term.
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Tags: IC, IC manufacturing, ICManufacturing, McClean Report, Semiconductors, Worldwide GDP
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Wednesday, July 18th, 2018
Semi content to surpass 30% this year, smashing the previous record high set just last year.
In its upcoming Mid-Year Update to The McClean Report 2018 (to be released at the end of July), IC Insights forecasts that the 2018 global electronic systems market will grow 5% to $1,622 billion while the worldwide semiconductor market is expected to surge by 14% this year to $509.1 billion, exceeding the $500.0 billion level for the first time. If the 2018 forecasts come to fruition, the average semiconductor content in an electronic system will reach 31.4%, breaking the all-time record of 28.8% that was set in 2017 (Figure 1).
Figure 1
Historically, the driving force behind the higher average annual growth rate of the semiconductor industry as compared to the electronic systems market is the increasing value or content of semiconductors used in electronic systems. With global unit shipments of cellphones (-1%), automobiles (3%), and PCs (-1%) forecast to be weak in 2018, the disparity between the moderate growth in the electronic systems market and high growth of the semiconductor market is directly due to the increasing content of semiconductors in electronic systems.
While the trend of increasing semiconductor content has been evident for the past 30 years, the big jump in the average semiconductor content in electronic systems in 2018 is expected to be primarily due to the huge surge in DRAM and NAND flash ASPs and average electronic system sales growth this year. After slipping to 30.2% in 2020, the semiconductor content percentage is expected to climb to a new high of 31.5% in 2022. IC Insights does not anticipate the percentage will fall below 30% any year through the forecast period.
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Tags: Electronic system, Forecast, IC manufacturing, ICManufacturing, Semiconductors, technology
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Tuesday, July 10th, 2018
Overspending by the major NAND suppliers expected to further cool NAND flash prices this year.
IC Insights will release its 200+ page Mid-Year Update to the 2018 McClean Report later this month. The Mid-Year Update revises IC Insights’ worldwide economic and IC industry forecasts through 2022 that were originally published in The 2018 McClean Report issued in January of this year.
Figure 1 compares the estimated required capex needed to increase NAND flash bit volume shipments 40% per year, sourced from a chart from Micron’s 2018 Analyst and Investor Event in May of this year, versus the annual capex targeting the NAND flash market segment using IC Insights’ data. As shown, Micron believes that the industry capex needed to increase NAND flash bit volume production by 40% more than doubled from $9 billion in 2015 to $22 billion only two years later in 2017! This tremendous surge in required capital was driven by the move to 3D NAND from planar NAND since 3D NAND requires much more fab equipment and additional cleanroom space to process the additional layers of the device as compared to planar NAND.
Most of the five major NAND flash suppliers have stated that they believe that NAND bit volume demand growth will average about 40% per year over the next few years. Figure 1 shows that the capex needed to support a 40% increase in NAND bit volume shipments was exceeded by 27% last year and is forecast to exceed the amount needed by another 41% this year (NAND bit volume shipments increased 41% in 2017 but 1H18/1H17 bit volume shipments were up only 30%). As a result, it is no surprise that NAND flash prices have already softened in early 2018. Moreover, the pace of the softening is expected to pick up in the second half of this year and continue into 2019.
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Tags: McClean Report, micron, NAND
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Thursday, June 21st, 2018
China accounted for 7 of top 10 leading smartphone suppliers in 2017, share grows to 42%.
IC Insights recently released its Update to its 2018 IC Market Drivers Report. The Update includes IC Insights’ latest outlooks on the smartphone, automotive, PC/tablet and Internet of Things (IoT) markets.
The Update shows a final 2017 ranking of the top smartphone leaders in terms of unit shipments. As shown in Figure 1, 9 of the top 12 smartphone suppliers were headquartered in China. Two South Korean companies (Samsung and LG) and one U.S. supplier (Apple) were the other leaders.
 Figure 1
Samsung and Apple dominated the smartphone market from 2015 through 2017. In total, these two companies shipped 526 million smartphones and held a combined 35% share of the total smartphone market in 2016. Moreover, these two companies shipped over one-half billion smartphones (533 million) in 2017 with their combined smartphone unit marketshare increasing one point to 36%.
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Tags: ICManufacturing, smartphone
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