To what people have been asking of what has driven the profit margins for the semiconductor companies? The straight retort back comes as Consumer Electronics. After the drop of PCs and tablets, smartphones has not disappointed the semiconductor industry. Semiconductor companies have also benefited from increased digitization and cloud use across other industries, both of which accelerate chip demand. Meanwhile, the semiconductor market is expected to reach $573 billion by 2024 with a CAGR of 4.1% from 2019 to 2024. The future of the semiconductor market looks attractive with opportunities in the communication, consumer electronics, automotive, and industrial sectors. The major drivers for this market are growth in wireless communication, increasing demand for advanced safety features in automotive, and growth in internet connected devices. Integrated circuit is reckoned to remain the largest segment due to increasing demand for memory ICs in smartphones, tablet PCs, and other personal media devices.
Consumers for Electronics?
Artificial intelligence (AI), 5G and Internet of Things, coupled with consistent spending on R&D is raising the competition among key players. East Asia (Mainland China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan) is where some of the world’s most important semiconductor players are located. The region has become a hotspot for the semiconductor industry due to its burgeoning economy, the rise of mobile communications and growth in cloud computing. Having said about the AI, 5G, IoT and cloud all is driven by mobility. Hence, the smartphone segment with advanced technologies *aforesaid is floating the next wave of transformation. Given challenges for designers trying to cope up with these technologies, new go-to-market strategies are keeping the zeal of competitiveness and the market healthy.
M&A New Drivers for Consumer Electronics Segment
M&A activity in the semiconductor industry has already peaked and specialized verticals are becoming the primary focus. Japan and Korea are seeking to revive their industries through acquisitions, while the continuing trade war and disputes over intellectual property will hamper China’s ambition to go on a global spending spree. The semiconductor sector’s growth trajectory will flatten somewhat as demand for consumer electronics saturates. However, many emerging segments will provide semiconductor companies with abundant opportunities. The Asia Pacific region will remain the world’s biggest market for semiconductor consumption. An increasing proportion of Chinese products, which is stimulating the growth of the whole Asia Pacific market, will be the major contributing factor. In addition, more M&A will benefit semiconductor sector growth going forward reports deloitte. There is significant increase in the demand of consumer electronics resulting from an in increase in the disposable income. Apart from this the manufacturing of consumer electronics is being done on a large scale which as a result be pushing the demand for semiconductors in this industry. Don’t forget the Infineon-Cypress billion-dollar merger.
Key Market Drivers in 2019
- Consumer technology focus and increasing automation are redefining the automotive space; cars are becoming mobile phones on wheels, and consumer demands for more functionality are making a significant impact on every aspect of the modern automotive industry
- The emergence of the consumer IoT: the North American home has an average of 13 connected devices in it. As we continue to adopt connected and ‘smart’ solutions, this number will continue to increase
- Mobile and wireless have, of course, driven growth in the last decade to decade-and-a-half, and there are no signs of a slow-down here. While consumers have not readily adopted the more expensive, full-featured flagship phones, there is rapid expansion in middle-market phones.
- In terms of market share, memory is the strongest semiconductor industry category, largely due to two main factors: memory is more expensive to produce as it becomes more advanced, and there is greater demand for it. In 2017, when memory technology shifted from 2D NAND to 3D NAND, demand far outpaced availability, leading to unprecedented price increases. Now, 3D NAND continues to develop, with 6 major players having released, or planning to soon release, 9X-Layer NAND solutions.
Few Marking Challenges for Consumer Electronics Segment
With the increased adoption of IoT sensor products like smart watches and glasses, as well as smartphones and other wearable devices, the semiconductor industry drives MEMS/NEMS sensor platforms with the power advantages of lower technology nodes and increased functionality on a single small form-factor die.
As the technology node shrinks, engineers have been trying to figure out the method to manage placement density and high memory count. At this time, lower geometry design becomes a major area of focus and tape-outs using advanced technology. Chip size has continued to decrease from year to year, from 90 nanometers to 65, 40, 28, 14 and 7 nanometers. Power consumption is another major concern during functional testing, especially facing lower design technology. As chip size shrinks, density tends to increase to nearly a million gates on a single chip, and power dissipation occuring in the chip due to leakage will become very significant. In order to reduce the loss of power, several leakage power minimization techniques have been developed. You can read more here about one such power leakage optimization technique in systems-on-chips. During the past 10 years, with the advent of smart devices, the electronics consumer industry has been in a constant state of competition that has driven semiconductor innovation to an unprecedented level.
New Platforms All Engineers
Platforms like Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and BeagleBone have made it possible for creative non-engineers to take advantage of the technology to innovate in their areas of passion. As this non-technical creative community begins to create new requirements for semiconductor devices, it’s important to make sure those requirements are met in a meaningful way. The goal is to eliminate the increasingly higher barriers of entry that surround electronic design and manufacturing.
Ease of Business and Nulling Trade War in 2020
The American-China trade tussle gave quite homework for the semiconductor. Making them understand on how to match profit margins while two big nations (the biggest exporters) are tussling on political and economic paradigms. But in 2020, this misfortune is said to ease down and bring-in new opportunities and new markets for the semiconductor market. The macroeconomic environment weakening is reckon not to affect semiconductor demand. The U.S.-China trade war has been a “very small” reason behind the slowdown seen in the semiconductor industry, says Ajit Manocha, CEO at industry association Semi. Manocha said the chip industry could see a pickup in the “early part of 2020” once the current period of softening passes. Commenting on the current U.S. approach toward China, Manocha said that Beijing is unlikely to face any “serious impact” if Washington continues to target it in a unilateral manner instead of working together with like-minded countries.
SOCs are Dominant
Mobile system-on-chips (SoCs) has become the leading product driver for technology definition and manufacturing for the semiconductor industry. This trend was first observed in 28 nm and will continue for 20 nm, 16/14 nm, and 10 nm adoption and production ramp. Recent mobile SoC performance increase was achieved mainly through silicon technology scaling, and from single to dual- and quad-core. For mobile SoCs to continue offering new and exciting user-experiences, and longer battery life, a holistic approach in orthogonal system scaling to break out of the box of (speed*density/power/cost) constrains is mandated. Examples in the new paradigm of mobile heterogeneous computing are: energy-efficient transistors/memories/interconnects in expanding and boosting existing SoC functionalities (e.g., SiGe/III-V FinFET, GAA-FET, TFET, and RRAM/MRAM etc.), all-inclusive technology/design co-optimization to extract more values from silicon tech, RFFE system integration, and the multi-die integration by system partitioning that allows each component to be optimized and integrated closely together for lower cost and power, higher performance, and reduced form factor.
