Worldwide semiconductor market expected to see 9.4 percent revenue growth from 2013 to 2014
ENGLEWOOD, Colo., 13 Jan. 2015. The global semiconductor market is expected to show 9.4 percent revenue growth from 2013 to 2014, say analysts at market researcher IHS Technology in Englewood, Colo.
Worldwide semiconductor market revenue is expected to grow from $322.8 billion in 2013 to $353.2 billion in 2014, with broad-based growth across several chip segments driving the best industry performance since 2010.
“This is the healthiest the semiconductor business has been in many years, says Dale Ford, vice president and chief analyst at IHS Technology.
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“While the upswing in 2013 was almost entirely driven by growth in a few specific memory segments, the rise in 2014 is built on a widespread increase in demand for a variety of different types of chips," Ford says.
The nearly double-digit-percentage increase last year follows growth of 6.4 percent in 2013, a decline of more than 2 percent in 2012, and a marginal increase of 1 percent in 2011.
The performance in 2014 represents the highest rate of annual growth since the 33 percent boom of 2010, IHS analysts say.
Of the 28 key sub-segments of the semiconductor market tracked by IHS, 22 are expected to expand in 2014. In contrast, only 12 sub-segments of the semiconductor industry grew in 2013.
In 2013 the key drivers of the growth of the semiconductor market were dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and data flash memory. These two memory segments together grew by more than 30 percent while the rest of the market only expanded by 1.5 percent.
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In 2014 the combined revenue for DRAM and data flash memory is projected to rise about 20 percent. However, growth in the rest of the market will swell by 6.7 percent to support the overall market increase of 9.4 percent.
In 2013, only eight semiconductor sub-segments grew by 5 percent or more and only three achieved double-digit growth. In 2014 15—will grow by more than 5 percent and eight markets will grow by double-digit percentages.
This pervasive growth is delivering general benefits to semiconductor suppliers, with 70 percent of chip makers expected to enjoy revenue growth in 2014, up from 53 percent in 2013.
The two market segments enjoying the strongest and most consistent growth in the last two years are DRAM and light-emitting diodes (LEDs). DRAM revenue will climb 33 percent for two years in a row in 2013 and 2014. This follows often strong declines in DRAM revenue in five of the last six years.
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The LED market is expected to grow by more than 11 percent in 2014. This continues an unbroken period of growth for LED revenues stretching back at least 13 years.
Major turnarounds are occurring in the analog, discrete, and microprocessor markets as they will swing from declines to strong growth in every sub-segment. Most segments will see their growth improve by more than 10 percent, compared to the declines experienced in 2013.
Furthermore, programmable logic device (PLD) and digital signal processor (DSP) application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) will experience dramatic improvements in growth. PLD revenue in 2014 will grow by 10.2 percent compared to 2.1 percent in 2013, and DSP ASICs will rise by 3.8 percent compared to a 31.9 percent collapse in 2013.
Semiconductor revenue in 2014 will grow in five of the six major semiconductor application end markets, i.e. data processing, wired communications, wireless communications, automotive electronics, and industrial electronics. The only market segment experiencing a decline will be consumer electronics. Revenue will expand by double-digit percentages in four of the six markets.
Japan continues to struggle, and is the only worldwide region that will see a decline in semiconductor revenues this year. The other three geographies—Asia-Pacific, the Americas and the Europe, Middle East and Africa region—will see healthy growth. The world will be led by led by Asia-Pacific which will post an expected revenue increase of 12.5 percent.
For more information contact IHS Technology online at http://technology.ihs.com/.
John Keller | Editor
John Keller is editor-in-chief of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, which provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronic and optoelectronic technologies in military, space, and commercial aviation applications. A member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since the magazine's founding in 1989, Mr. Keller took over as chief editor in 1995.
