MEMs-based semiconductor sales are expected to reach $8.0bn this year according to a report published by IC Insights. The report, entitled 'A Market Analysis and Forecast for Optoelectronics, Sensors/Actuators, and Discretes', includes details of expected sales, unit shipments and selling prices of products within the semiconductor industry, through to 2018.

According to the '2014 O-S-D Report - A Market Analysis and Forecast for Optoelectronics, Sensors/Actuators, and Discretes' from IC Insights, multi-sensor platforms, wearable systems, and the rush to connect things to the Internet are reigniting MEMS sensor sales once again.

Stand-alone digital cameras are being displaced by camera-equipped phones, which have improved significantly in picture-taking quality and can immediately send copies of electronic photos by e-mail or post them online, says IC Insights.

Semiconductor manufacturers closed 72 wafer fabs between 2009-2013 and another nine fabs are slated to close in 2014, according to data recently compiled, updated, and now available in IC Insights’ Strategic Reviews online database and the Global Wafer Capacity 2014 report. 

Later this month, IC Insights’ May Update to The 2014 McClean Report will show a ranking of the 1Q14 top 25 semiconductor suppliers.  A preview of the top 20 companies is presented in Figure 1.  The top 20 worldwide semiconductor (IC and O S D—optoelectronic, sensor, and discrete) sales ranking for 1Q14 includes nine suppliers headquartered in the U.S., three in Taiwan, three in Europe, two in South Korea, two in Japan, and ...

IC Insights’ April Update to The 2014 McClean Report shows a ranking of the 2013 top 50 fabless IC suppliers (as well as the leading foundry, MPU, DRAM, flash, DSP, MCU, standard cell, analog, and PLD suppliers).  A preview of this ranking showing the top 25 fabless companies is listed in Figure 1.  The top-25 worldwide fabless IC sales leaders for 2013 included 14 suppliers headquartered in the U.S., five in Taiwan, two in China,...

For more than three decades, power transistors have been the growth engine in the $21 billion commodity-filled discrete semiconductor market, handling the vital job of controlling, converting, and conditioning currents and voltages in an ever-expanding range of electronics—including battery-operated portable products, new energy-saving equipment, hybrid and electric vehicles,  “smart” electric-grid applications, and renewab...

After missing major market opportunities in fast-growing smartphones and tablet computers, Intel continues to shake itself up in ways that would have been unthinkable several years ago, according to information in IC Insights’ newly released 140-page Update to the 2014 IC Market Drivers Report.

IC Insights’ Mid-Year Update to The 2014 McClean Report (to be released next month) will provide a detailed look at the DRAM market trends and forecasts through 2018.  Initial research for the Mid-Year Update shows that the 2Q14 DRAM ASP is expected to be just slightly less than in 1Q14 (Figure 1).  DRAM unit volume shipments are forecast to be 3.40 billion in 2Q14, flat with 1Q14 but down 5% compared with 2Q13 and down 15% from 2...

The 2014 McClean Report, from IC Insights, shows a ranking of the 2013 top-10 microprocessor suppliers (as well as the leading foundry, DRAM, flash, DSP, MCU, standard cell, analog, and PLD suppliers). A subset of this ranking listing the top 5 MPU suppliers is depicted in Figure 1. The $58.6bn (USD) microprocessor market was the largest single semiconductor product category in 2013, accounting for 22% of total IC sales.

According to data from IC Insights’ "IC Market Drivers, A Study of Emerging and Major End-Use Applications Fueling Demand for Integrated Circuits", communications systems are forecast to be the driving force for IC sales in three out of the four major global geographic regions. They are also expected to overtake computer systems to become the largest system application for ICs for the first time in 2014.

Total O-S-D (Optoelectronics, Sensors/Actuators, and Discretes) sales rose to an all-time high of $58.6bn in 2013, according to information from IC Insights’ 2014 'O-S-D Report - A Market Analysis and Forecast for Optoelectronics, Sensors/Actuators, and Discretes'. This just beat the previous high of $58.2bn in 2012, when revenues also grew very slightly from record levels in 2011.

According to the 2014 edition of IC Insights’ 'IC Market Drivers - A Study of Emerging and Major End-Use Applications Fueling Demand for Integrated Circuits', the IC market for total personal computing systems is forecast to increase 6% to $77.7bn (USD) in 2014 and climb another 6% in 2015 to $82.1bn (USD). This is just less than the 2010 record-high of $82.3bn (USD).

IC Insights’ March Update to the 2014 McClean Report (released later this month) provides updated forecasts for 33 major IC product categories through 2018. The complete list of all 33 major IC product categories ranked by forecast growth rate for 2014 is shown in Figure 1. 

IC Insights has released their 2013 ranking of semiconductor companies by R&D spending. Intel continued to top the list, accounting for 37% of the top-10 spending and 19% of total worldwide semiconductor R&D expenditures. Intel’s R&D spending was more than triple that of second-place Qualcomm.

In the 2014 edition of "The McClean Report - A Complete Analysis and Forecast of the Integrated Circuit Industry", IC Insights have forecast total semiconductor unit shipments (integrated circuits and opto-sensor-discrete, or O-S-D, devices) to grow annually through the current cyclical upturn and top one trillion units for the first time in 2016.

The 2014 edition of IC Insights’ McClean report provides a ranking of the industry’s 10 largest IC manufacturers in terms of installed capacity. This top 10 list features four companies from North America, two companies from South Korea, two from Taiwan, and one each from Europe and Japan.

IC Insights has recently released the 2014 edition of 'IC Market Drivers - A Study of Emerging and Major End-Use Applications Fueling Demand for Integrated Circuits'. According to the report, price erosion and the weak global economy have lowered server sales volumes in the past two years, but this computer market is expected to see a modest rebound in 2014 with worldwide revenues rising about 3% to $54.6bn (USD), followed by stronger growth in 2...

Information in this Research Bulletin comes from the 2014 edition of IC Insights’ IC Market Drivers report, which was released in November 2013.  The 475-page report includes 330 charts and figures to analyze several existing and emerging end-use applications that will drive the IC market through the year 2017.

IC Insights have today announced that the 2014 edition of IC Market Drivers report will be released in November. Now a standard capability in many electronic systems (e.g., laptop and desktop PCs, tablets, smartphones, residential gateways, etc.), wireless networking is one of the key topics included in the new report.