Date: 07/03/2011

Semiconductor industry market estimates for 2011

Its hard to find dull face in semiconductor industry in 2010. The reason is, on overall basis the industry has grown by more than 30%, this is our estimates. In 2010, the growth was seen in all areas, except the desktop computers and the memory for that. There is increase in sales of phones, tablets, netbooks, notebooks, TVs, and Cameras resulting in growth of analog, digital, RF, and discrete semiconductor devices. Telecom infrastructure and Automotive domain is also registering fast growth. Healthy growth can be noticed in the areas of defense/aerospace, industrial, medical resulting in overall growth for all types of general semiconductor devices and also for FPGAs.

The large volume driven phone, tablet, and TV market will continue to grow in 2011. There is no reason for the growth curve to bend much down compared to 2010. There are plenty of reasons for the curve to climb up. Touch interfaced smart phones are entering mainstream middle class market now and still lot of room for growth. Tablets to replace netbooks faster and the competition in this market can only create more demand for SoC semiconductor chips, wireless ICs, MEMS devices, and touch interface controllers.
In 2011, TVs might not see the same growth of 2010 but the HD and 3D content can fuel the growth in this market.

The consistent fast growth is expected in telecom infrastructure, automotive, and medical. Telecom infrastructure upgrade need more 3G/4G supporting semiconductors. Electric and hybrid vehicle will demand little different microcontrollers, power semiconductor devices compared to traditional automotives. The infotainment, connectivity, and body electronics will continue to grow in 2011 creating demand for automotive grade SoCs, RF ICs, MCUs, and Sensors.

In 2011 Medical Electronics will be driven by volume market where patient can have electronic device to regularly check health. Also hospitals will continue to invest in expensive equipments for diagnosis and curing.

Aerospace and Defense will create opportunity more for compound semiconductor material based devices. The growth is linear in this market.

The fast growing areas can be listed in this priority: FPGA, SoC for tablets and phones, RF/Wireless ICs, Touch interface devices, Automotive power semiconductor devices, 3G/4G, picocell ICs, HD processing chips.
The medium growth can be predicted for Power ICs, Analog, Microcontrollers (MCU), Flash, Analog.
DRAM ,SRAM, and tradition computer Chips might grow flat.

We estimate the total semiconductor market growth to be around 20% in 2011. There are high chances of exceeding this growth figure. The ASP pressure will be there in 2011 in all medium and high volume markets.
You can look forward for detailed market estimates in our coming articles.