New Global Wafer Capacity report shows top-10 installed capacity leaders in three different wafer size categories.

IC Insights recently released its new Global Wafer Capacity 2021-2025 report that provides details, analyses, and forecasts for IC industry capacity by wafer size, process geometry, region, and product type through 2025.

Rankings of IC manufacturers by installed capacity for each of the wafer sizes are shown in Figure 1. The chart also compares the relative amounts of capacity held by the top 10 leaders.

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MPU and DRAM round out top three product categories in $143 billion China IC market.

IC Insights recently released its 2021 edition of The McClean Report.  The new analysis and forecast of the IC industry includes an analysis of regional IC marketshares, including a split of the China IC market by product type.

China became the largest IC market in the world in 2005 and has continued to grow in size since then. In 2020, the Chinese IC market increased to $143.4 billion, a 9% gain from $131.3 billion in 2019.  IC Insights estimates that 60% ($86.0 billion) of China’s $143.4 billion IC market was integrated into an electronic system that was exported while 40% of its IC market ($57.4 billion) was used in systems that remained in the country. Figure 1 shows the split of China’s IC market by product type.  Leading the way were sales of logic devices, which accounted for 26% ($37.5 billion) of China’s IC market last year.  IC Insights forecasts the logic market will remain China’s largest IC product segment through 2025, maintaining a strong CAGR of 10.5% through the forecast period.

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Foundries and memory IC suppliers maintain strongest capacity presence.

IC Insights recently released its new Global Wafer Capacity 2021-2025 report that provides in-depth detail, analyses, and forecasts for IC industry capacity by wafer size, process geometry, region, and product type through 2025.  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 2020.

Each of the top-five wafer capacity leaders had capacity of at least 1.5 million wafer starts per month (Figure 1). The combined capacity of the top five companies represented 54% of total global wafer capacity in December 2020, up one point from 53% in 2019.  For comparison, in the year 2009, the top 10 wafer capacity leaders held 54% of total global capacity and the top five leaders accounted for 36% of capacity.

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Memory, auto-specific, and embedded MPUs expected to outpace total IC market growth this year.

IC Insights recently released its 2021 edition of The McClean Report.  The new analysis and forecast of the IC industry includes IC Insights’ ranking of IC product categories based on sales growth rate.  The listing projects the market growth rate for each of the 33 IC product categories defined by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization.  The top-10 fastest growing IC segments forecast for this year are shown in Figure 1.

Each of the top-10 growing IC product categories is expected to see a double-digit increase in sales, but only the top-five segments are forecast to grow faster than the total IC market, which IC Insights projects will rise 12% this year.

Figure 1

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IC market forecast to log its second year in a row of double-digit growth to set a new all-time high.

IC Insights is pleased to now offer its 2021 edition of The McClean Report.  The McClean Report has become a staple of the IC industry, delivering timely, sound, and resourceful semiconductor market data and analysis since it was first published in 1997.  This 24th edition of The McClean Report features more than 400 pages and over 375 charts and figures.  A one-hour webcast covering some of the highlights of the new report is also now accessible for subscribers.

A comparison of several key McClean Report market metrics for 2020 and 2021 are shown below.

Throughout its history, the IC industry has experienced amazing highs and endured gut-wrenching lows. Nothing, however, has quite matched the challenge presented in 2020 when the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic swept around the world.  The damaging impact on individuals as well as regional/global economies was evident early on. Yet, through it all, the total IC industry largely avoided the catastrophic sales decline seen in many other industries. Global IC sales increased 10% in 2020 fueled by demand for portable computers and powerful large-screen smartphones, which were used to access the Internet and cloud computing when the Covid-19 crisis was rapidly spreading.  Investment in expansion of data-center computers also gave IC sales a boost.

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Intel stays on top of research and development ranking, but its share of total industry R&D expenditures dipped after its spending decreased 4% in 2020.  AMD moved into the R&D top 10, says new report.

Research and development spending by semiconductor companies worldwide is forecast to grow 4% in 2021 to $71.4 billion after rising 5% in 2020 to a record high of $68.4 billion, according to IC Insights’ new 2021 edition of The McClean Report—A Complete Analysis and Forecast of the Integrated Circuit Industry.  Total R&D spending by semiconductor companies is expected to rise by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.8% between 2021 and 2025 to $89.3 billion.

When the world was hit by the Covid-19 virus health crisis in 2020, wary semiconductor suppliers kept a lid on R&D spending increases, even though total semiconductor industry revenue grew by a surprising 8% in the year despite the economic fallout from the deadly pandemic.  Semiconductor R&D expenditures as a percentage of worldwide industry sales slipped to 14.2% in 2020 compared to 14.6% in 2019, when research and development spending declined 1% and total semiconductor revenue fell 12%.  Figure 1 plots semiconductor R&D spending levels and the spending-to-sales ratios over the past two decades and IC Insights’ forecast through 2025.

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IC Insights forecasts China-produced ICs will represent only 19.4% of its IC market in 2025, a fraction of the Made in China 2025 goal of 70%.

IC Insights will release its new 2021 McClean Report—A Complete Analysis and Forecast of the Integrated Circuit Industry later this month.  A portion of the new report will examine the IC market by region with an analysis and forecast of the China IC market by product type through 2025.

A very clear distinction should be made between the IC market in China and indigenous IC production in China. As IC Insights has oftentimes stated, although China has been the largest consuming country for ICs since 2005, it does not necessarily mean that large increases in IC production within China would immediately follow.  As shown in Figure 1, IC production in China represented 15.9% of its $143.4 billion IC market in 2020, up from 10.2% 10 years earlier in 2010.  Moreover, IC Insights forecasts that this share will increase by 3.5 percentage points from 2020 to 19.4% in 2025 (a 0.7 percentage point per year gain on average).
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The McClean Report 2021 provides a careful analysis and forecast of the IC market in anticipation of robust recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.

The year 2020 was a most unusual and challenging year for businesses and consumers.  With the promise of a new year looming, it is worthwhile to step back, take a fresh look at the IC industry, and assess where it stands today and what can be expected in 2021 (Figure 1). With 24 years of semiconductor industry market research experience, let IC Insights’ provide you with a solid analysis and forecast of the IC industry with its highly acclaimed McClean Report—A Complete Analysis and Forecast of the Integrated Circuit Industry.

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21 of 33 IC product categories to see positive growth in 2020 demonstrating remarkable resilience of IC market during pandemic-induced global economic downturn.

IC Insights is in the process of updating its comprehensive forecasts and analyses of the IC industry for its 24th edition of The McClean Report, which will be released in January 2021.  Among the revisions is a complete update of the sales and unit shipment growth forecast growth rates through 2025 for the 33 main product categories classified by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics organization (WSTS). Shown in this bulletin are the top five largest product categories for sales and revenue growth for 2020.

Coming as no surprise, each of the top-five IC product categories in terms of sales all have ties to computing or communication applications. With estimated sales of $65.2 billion, DRAM tops the list with the greatest sales revenue in 2020, followed in second place by NAND flash (Figure 1).  Computer and cellphone processors also make the list along with Computer—Special Purpose Logic.

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