Semiconductor industry spending on R&D grew by just 0.5% in 2015, which was the smallest increase since the 2009 downturn year and significantly below the CAGR of 4.0% in R&D expenditures during the last 10 years, according to IC Insights’ 2016 edition of The McClean Report. The 0.5% increase nudged worldwide R&D spending by semiconductor companies to a new record-high level of $56.4bn in 2015 from the previous peak of $54....

IC Insights has released its Global Wafer Capacity 2016-2020 report that provides in-depth detail and analysis of IC industry capacity by wafer size, process geometry, region and product type. The report provides a ranking of the industry’s 25 largest IC manufacturers in terms of installed capacity as of December 2015. The top 10 capacity leaders are shown in Figure 1.

Between 2015 and 2019, worldwide systems revenues for applications connecting to the IoT will nearly double, reaching $124.5bn in the final year of this decade, according to the 2016 edition of IC Insights’ IC Market Drivers report. During that same timeframe, new connections to the IoT will grow from about 1.7bn in 2015 to nearly 3.1bn in 2019 (Figure 1), based on the forecast in the new 450-page report, which examines emerging and major e...

The total production value of electronic systems is forecast to decrease 2% in 2015 to an estimated $1,423bn, marking only the fourth time in history that the systems market registers a decline (previous years were 2001, 2002 and 2009). Total electronic system sales are forecast to reach $1,614bn in 2019, which represents a CAGR of 2.1% from $1,454bn in 2014.

IC Insights' 2016 McClean Report, due to be published in January, will include a ranking of the top-50 semiconductor suppliers’ for 2015 as well as the top-50 fabless semiconductor suppliers. The forecasted “post-merger” top-10 2015 IDM and fabless semiconductor suppliers are covered in this research bulletin.

Due for release later this month, IC Insights' 2016 IC Market Drivers Report contains analyses on automotive electronics, the IoT, medical and health systems, tablet PCs, smartphones and several other mature and emerging electronic systems. Figure 1 shows how important the replacement and multi-phone subscriber market has become to the cellphone industry.

IC Insights' November Update to the 2015 McClean Report will include the latest IC market forecasts by product type through 2019, a detailed forecast for semiconductor industry capital spending by company for 2016 and a ranking of the top-25 semiconductor suppliers’ forecast for 2015 (the forecasted top-20 2015 semiconductor suppliers are covered in this research bulletin).

The worldwide O-S-D (Optoelectronics; Sensors and actuators; and Discrete semiconductors) market has turned into a mixed bag of double-digit growth for several major product categories (lamp devices, infrared circuits and CMOS image sensors) combined with single-digit declines in sales for nearly a dozen other categories (including most sensors, diodes, rectifiers and power transistors).

IC Insights has released its October Update to The McClean Report, which examined the effects of slowing worldwide GDP growth and a stronger U.S. dollar on the 2015 IC market forecast. Since all of IC Insights’ figures are presented in U.S. dollars, a strengthening U.S. currency deflates foreign sales and market results while a weakening U.S. dollar serves to inflate the sales and market figures.

The total pure-play foundry market is forecast to grow 6.1% to $44.9bn in 2015. The entire increase in pure-play foundry sales is forecast to be due to sales of devices built using leading edge (less than 40nm) feature sizes. The <40nm pure-play foundry market is expected to increase 24% to $16.1bn in 2015 compared to $13.0bn in 2014 (see Figure 1, below). In contrast, pure-play foundry sales of ≥40nm devices are forecast to decline 2% to $...

IC Insights has examined the huge surge of Merger & Acquisition (M&A) activity in the IC industry during the first six months of 2015. In just the first half of 2015, announced semiconductor acquisition agreements had a combined total value of $72.6bn, which was nearly six times the annual average for M&A deals struck during the five previous years (2010-2014).

Five years ago, touchscreen tablets began pouring into the personal computing marketplace, stealing growth from standard personal computers and signaling the start of what has been widely described as the ‘post-PC’ era. Led by Apple’s iPad systems, tablet shipments overtook notebook PCs in 2013, and it appeared as if they would surpass total personal computer units by 2016. However, that scenario no longer seems possible after t...

Larger wafer diameters provide more chips per wafer at a modest increase in material and process costs, resulting in reduced chip costs. Historically, transitions to larger diameter wafers have provided cost reductions greater than 20% per unit area. However, enormous financial and technology hurdles continue to plague the development of, and the transition to, 450mm wafers.

Asia-Pacific’s grip as the dominant market for IC sales is forecast to strengthen in 2015 with the region expected to account for 58.9% of the $295.0bn IC market this year, according to IC Insights. The forecast marketshare represents an increase of 0.5 percentage points over the 58.4% share that the Asia-Pacific region captured in 2014.

According to IC Insights, the pure-play foundry market is forecast to grow to an all-time high of $12.2bn in 4Q15, following several quarters in which sales remained between $11.3 and $11.8bn, see (Figure 1). IC Insights defines a pure-play foundry as a company that does not offer a significant amount of IC products of its own design but instead focuses on producing ICs for other companies, such as TSMC, GlobalFoundries, UMC and SMIC.

According to IC Insights’ Mid-Year Update to its 2015 McClean Report on the IC industry, MCUs are in the middle of an incredible wave of unit growth, but unprecedented price erosion is keeping a lid on the increase of revenues. The mid-year forecast shows MCU shipments rising 33% in 2015 to 25.4bn units worldwide as a result of a tremendous upsurge in units for smartcards and 32-bit applications - many of which are aimed at the IoT market.

After levelling off in the second half of the last decade, CMOS image sensors are in the midst of a strong new wave of growth, which is being driven by a broad range of applications and promises to lift worldwide sales to record-high levels each year through 2019, according to the 2015 edition of IC Insights’ O-S-D Report—A Market Analysis and Forecast for Optoelectronics, Sensors/Actuators, and Discretes.

IC Insights will release its August Update to the 2015 McClean Report later this month. The August Update will include an in-depth analysis of the IC foundry market and a look at the top 25 1H15 semiconductor suppliers’ sales results and their outlooks for 3Q15 (the top 20 1H15 semiconductor suppliers are covered in this research bulletin).

IC Insights’ 185-page Mid-Year Update to The McClean Report examines the recent surge of M&A activity, including China’s aggressive new programmes aimed at bolstering its presence in the semiconductor industry. In the first six months of 2015 alone, announced semiconductor acquisition agreements had a combined total value of $72.6bn (Figure 1), nearly six times the annual average for M&A deals struck during the five previous y...

Market revenues associated with network communications, sensing and control functions in subsystems and objects attached to the IoT are forecast to grow 29% in 2015 to $62.4bn after increasing 21% in 2014 to about $48.4bn, according to data in IC Insights’ recently released Update to its 2015 IC Market Drivers Report. Figure 1 provides a breakout of sales growth in five IoT market categories, based on IC Insights’ updated forecast.