Category Archives: Applications

The health of the IC industry is increasingly tied to the health of the worldwide economy. Rarely can there be strong IC market growth without at least a “good” worldwide economy to support it. Consequently, IC Insights expects annual global IC market growth rates to closely track the performance of worldwide GDP growth. In the recently released The McClean Report 2016, IC Insights forecasts 2.7% global GDP growth for 2016, only marginally ahead of what is considered to be the recession threshold of 2.5% growth.

Figure 1 puts the worldwide electronics and semiconductor industries into perspective. The top figure, worldwide GDP, represents all global economic activity. Essentially, the worldwide total available market (TAM) for business (i.e., GDP) was $78.4 trillion in 2015.

In many areas of the world, local economies have slowed. For example, economic growth in China slipped below 7% in 2015. China, which is the leading market for personal computers, digital TVs, smartphones, new commercial aircraft, and automobiles, is forecast to lose more economic momentum in 2016. Its GDP is forecast to increase 6.3% in 2016, which continues a slide in that country’s annual GDP growth rate that started in 2010.

While the U.S. economy is far from perfect, it is currently one of the most significant positive driving forces in the worldwide economy. The U.S. accounted for 22% of worldwide GDP in 2015. U.S. GDP is forecast to grow 2.5% in 2016. Given its size and strength, the U.S. economy greatly influences overall global GDP growth. An improving employment picture and the low price of oil are factors that should positively impact the U.S. economy in 2016.

Other noteworthy industry highlights from the 2016 edition of The McClean Report include the following:

• Global semiconductor sales decreased 1% in 2015 but are forecast to grow 4% in 2016. IC Insights expects the worldwide IC market to increase 4% in 2016, and sales of optoelectronics, sensors, and discrete (OSD) devices collectively to register 5% growth.

Figure 1

Figure 1

• Total semiconductor unit shipments (including IC and OSD devices) reached almost 840-billion units in 2015 and are expected to exceed one trillion units in 2018. After increasing 4% in 2015, IC unit shipments are forecast to grow 5% in 2016. Analog devices are forecast to account for 53% of total IC unit shipments in 2016.

• A stable IC pricing environment is expected through 2020 due in part to fewer suppliers in various IC markets (i.e., DRAM, MPU, etc.), lower capital spending as a percent of sales, and no significant new IC manufacturers entering the market in the future (the surge of Chinese IC companies that entered the market in the early 2000’s is assumed to be the last large group of newcomers.

• Semiconductor industry capital spending grew to $65.9 billion in 2015. IC Insights forecasts semiconductor capital spending will decrease 1% in 2016. Spending on flash memory and within the foundry segment is forecast to increase in 2016 but spending for all other market segments, including DRAM, is expected to decline. Semiconductor capital spending as a percent of sales is forecast to remain in the mid- to high-teens range through 2020. IC Insights believes spending at this level will not lead to an industry-wide overcapacity during the forecast period.

• Semiconductor R&D spending increased 1% in 2015 to new record high of $56.4 billion. Intel dedicated $12.1 billion to R&D in 2015 (24.0% of sales) to remain the largest semiconductor R&D spender in 2015. R&D spending at TSMC, the industry’s biggest pure-play foundry rose 10% in 2015, ranking it 5th among top R&D spenders. TSMC joined the group of top-10 R&D spenders for the first time in 2010, giving an indication of just how important TSMC and other pure-play foundries have become to the IC industry with continuing technological progress.

Further trends and analysis relating to the IC market are covered in the main 400-plus page 2016 edition of The McClean Report.

Gartner, Inc. forecasts that 274.6 million wearable electronic devices will be sold worldwide in 2016, an increase of 18.4 percent from 232.0 million units in 2015 (see Table 1). Sales of wearable electronic devices will generate revenue of $28.7 billion in 2016. Of that, $11.5 billion will be from smartwatches.

“From 2015 through 2017, smartwatch adoption will have 48 percent growth largely due to Apple popularizing wearables as a lifestyle trend. Smartwatches have the greatest revenue potential among all wearables through 2019, reaching $17.5 billion,” said Angela McIntyre, research director at Gartner. “Though the sales of smartwatches are the one of the strongest types of wearables, their adoption will remain much below sales of smartphones. For example, in 2016 more than 374 million smartphones will sell in mature market countries and in large urban areas of emerging market countries, for example, in Hong Kong and Singapore.”

Table 1: Forecast for Wearable Devices Worldwide (Millions of Units)

Device

2015

2016

2017
Smartwatch

30.32

50.40

66.71
Head-mounted display

0.14

1.43

6.31
Body-worn camera

0.05

0.17

1.05
Bluetooth headset

116.32

128.50

139.23
Wristband

30.15

34.97

44.10
Smart garment

0.06

1.01

5.30
Chest strap

12.88

13.02

7.99
Sports watch

21.02

23.98

26.92
Other fitness monitor

21.07

21.11

25.08
Total

232.01

274.59

322.69

Source: Gartner (January 2016)

Fitness wearables — which include wristbands, smart garments, chest straps, sports watches and other fitness monitors — continue to increase in popularity, driven in some part by U.S. wellness programs.

“Of all the fitness wearables, sports watches will be the one product category to maintain its average retail price over the next several years,” said Ms. McIntyre. “Race runners, cyclists and divers will choose sports watches over smartwatches because the user interface, capabilities and durability are tailored to the needs of an athlete in their sport. Continued advances in sensors and analytics for sports watches will bring new capabilities that bolster average retail prices.”

Although the size of the worldwide wristband market was on par with the unit sales of smartwatches in 2015, looking forward smartwatches will have stronger appeal with consumers as they typically have more multifunctional devices that can track exercise. Wristband providers are experimenting with how to compete with smartwatches and take market share from the market leader, Fitbit. Examples of emerging value propositions for wristbands beyond fitness include mobile payments, access, safety, wellness and health.

Head-mounted displays (HMDs) are an emerging market with origins as expensive military projects, and in 2016 the HMD market will progress toward mainstream adoption for consumers and enterprise use. “New virtual reality HMDs for consumers, such as the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Sony PlayStation VR, and Microsoft HoloLens are expected to be available along with video games and entertainment content as well as business applications critical for their success,” said Brian Blau, research director at Gartner. “Film producers and sports leagues will augment their traditional content through HMDs to enhance their customer experiences by creating interactive attractions, movies, and sporting events that make the content more personal and meaningful.”

Enterprise use of HMDs will also grow in the coming years with 26 percent of HMDs designed for business use in 2018. HMDs will be purchased by businesses for use by employees for tasks such as equipment repair, inspections and maintenance. Workers also will use HMDs for viewing instructions and directions hands free while they are performing a task.

Additional information is available in the report “Forecast: Wearable Electronic Devices, Worldwide, 2016.”Further analysis on the wristband market can be found in the report “Market Trends: Wristbands, Worldwide, 2015.”

The popularity of Apple’s iPhone 6S and other products is boosting the microelectromechanical-systems (MEMS) microphones market to a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11 percent from 2015 to 2019. The market is forecast to reach 5.8 billion units, with $1.3 billion in revenue, in 2019. Apple, which shifted from three MEMS microphones in the iPhone 6 line to four in the iPhone 6S line, will purchase more than one billion MEMS microphones in 2016 for the iPhone, according to IHS Inc. (NYSE: IHS).

“Prior to Apple, Microsoft and Motorola had already introduced some smartphones with four MEMS microphones, but in lower volumes,” said Marwan Boustany, senior analyst for MEMS and Sensors for IHS Technology. “Following Apple’s lead, additional manufacturers are expected to start including between two and four MEMS microphones in mobile handsets.”

Source: IHS

 

Apple is expected to purchase more MEMS microphones than Samsung Electronics, Xiaomi and Huawei combined in 2016. When counting the MEMS microphones used for the iPad, and for the earbuds sold with Apple’s iPhone, Apple Watch and Macbook notebooks, Apple accounted for a third of the total consumption of MEMS microphones in 2015.

The move to three or four microphones is currently driven by hands-free calling and voice commands for Siri, Google Now, Cortana and other apps, which are becoming an increasingly important means of interaction between consumers and their smartphones. Additional MEMS microphones are also added on the back of the phone for richer audio fidelity in video recording, noise cancellation and better call and recording performance.

“It will be harder for manufacturers to justify a move to five microphones in the coming years, unless clear and potentially popular use cases are identified,” Boustany said. “So far, Motorola’s Droid Turbo is the only handset with five MEMS microphones to become widely available.”

Knowles remains the market leader in MEMS microphone shipments and revenue, but the company’s share is eroding. Goertek, STMicroelectronics and AAC have recently made great gains in the market, selling to Apple and other companies, according to the IHS MEMS & Sensors for Consumer and Mobile Intelligence Service.

At this week’s IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC2016), nanoelectronics research center imec and Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) presented a self-calibrated high-speed (10Mbits/s) phase modulator achieving an excellent Error Vector Magnitude (EVM) of -37dB at 10.25 GHz. The modulator is based on a l analog fractional subsampling PLL featuring a world leading -246.6dB Figure of Merit (FOM). It is an attractive solution for phase modulation in highly efficient polar transmitters.

Radio frequency synthesizers are ubiquitous building blocks of today’s ever growing networking solutions. Whether for high throughput applications like LTE-Advanced or for sub-mW Internet-of-Things nodes, the phase noise of the RF synthesizer sets a limit to the achievable data rate or to the total radio power consumption, as one can often be traded for the other. On top of that, for efficient spectrum usage, the new standards typically involve higher order modulation schemes. Polar transmitters, using efficient nonlinear power amplifiers might be a good option, but they need highly accurate phase modulators.

The PLL is built around an analog-based subsampling high-gain phase detector, which enables low-noise operation. The advanced 28nm CMOS technology is exploited to enhance its performance through innovative built-in background self-calibration that corrects all non-idealities of the analog building blocks. Together, these technique ensure a state-of-the-art noise performance resulting in only 176fsec jitter. Similarly, digital phase modulation is implemented, with quasi-ideal performance thanks to background calibration of all non-idealities. Combined with the intrinsic low noise of the PLL, a record EVM better than -37dB is achieved at 10GHz carrier.

These results were presented at ISSCC2016 as paper 9.7 in the High performance wireless session: “N. Markulic et al.; A Self-Calibrated 10Mb/s Phase Modulator with -37.4dB EVM Based on a 10.1-to-12.4GHz, -246.6dB-FOM, Fractional-N Subsampling PLL.”

At this week’s IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC2016), nanoelectronics research center imec and Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) presented a four-antenna path beamforming transceiver for 60GHz multi Gb/s communication in 28nm CMOS technology. The transceiver is a breakthrough in developing a small, low-cost, and low power solution for multi-gigabit communication targeting WiGig as well as 60GHz wireless backhaul applications.

Due to the tremendous growth of mobile data traffic, display and audio applications, new spectral resources in the mm-wave frequency bands are needed to support user demand for high data rates. One way to realize this is through mm-wave wireless networks based on small outdoor cells featuring beamforming, a signal processing technique using phased antenna arrays for directional transmission or reception. The beamforming steers the radiation in the desired direction while achieving a good link budget that supports high spectral efficiency.

Imec’s and VUB’s 60GHz transceiver architecture features direct conversion and analog baseband beamforming with four antennas. The architecture is inherently simple and is not affected by image frequency interference. Moreover, a 24GHz phase-locked loop that subharmonically locks a 60GHz quadrature oscillator is inherently immune to the pulling disturbance of the 60GHz power amplifier.

The prototype transceiver chip (7,9mm2), implemented in 28nm CMOS, integrates a four-antenna array. The chip was validated with a IEEE 802.11ad standard wireless link of 1m. The transmitter consumes 670mW and the receiver 431mW at 0.9V power supply. The transmitter-to-receiver EVM was better than -20dB in all the four WiGig frequency channels (58.32, 60.48, 62.64 and 64.8 GHz), with a transmitter equivalent isotropic radiated power (EIRP) of 24dBm. This allows for QPSK as well as 16QAM modulations according to the IEEE 802.11ad standard, achieving very high data rates up to 4.62 Gbps.

Interested companies are invited to join imec’s 60 GHz R&D as a research partner and benefit from collaboration in imec’s Industrial Affiliation Program, development-on-demand, academic partnerships, or access to the technology for further development through licensing programs.

imec chip

The wearable technology market continues to rapidly expand, driving more than $40 billion in revenue by 2020. There were 23 million wireless-charging-enabled wearable products shipped in 2015, and by 2020 40 percent of all wearable devices shipped will be enabled to charge wirelessly. Smartwatches are set to be the largest contributor to the wirelessly charged wearables market, accounting for almost 40 percent of all wearable-device wireless-charging receivers shipped in 2020, according to IHS Inc. (NYSE: IHS), a global source of critical information and insight,

“Smartwatches are a key driver for wireless charging adoption in the wearable market, as both the Apple Watch and the Samsung Gear S2 use inductive wireless charging technology as the only method of recharging the battery,” said Vicky Yussuff, wireless power analyst for IHS Technology. “By 2020, Apple and Samsung are expected to account for almost half of all smartwatch shipments; significantly increasing the number of wireless charging-enabled devices available to consumers.”

As with any other application, the key appeal of integrating wireless charging into wearable devices is the improvement in convenience it offers end users; however, in contrast to mobile phones and other consumer devices, wireless charging is typically the only way to charge smartwatches and other wearables. For example, the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge mobile phones are both enabled for wireless charging, but they also include a micro USB cable for traditional charging. In contrast, the Samsung Gear S2 smartwatch is also enabled to charge wirelessly, but has no wired connection; it is shipped with its own dedicated wireless charging transmitter dock, which is the only way to recharge the device battery.

Wearable devices come in various form factors, which presents challenges for wireless charging, because alignment becomes more difficult and more spatial freedom is required. “Magnetic resonance technology offers greater spatial freedom than an inductive solution and thus would best support the use case for wearable technology,” Yussuff said. “Delays in the commercial release of magnetic resonance solutions have created opportunity for inductive solutions to gain widespread adoption in the short term, before magnetic resonance market share increases towards 2020.”

Some progress in uncoupled technology using radio frequency was recently demonstrated by Energous Corporation at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). The company demonstrated power transmission using its first miniature WattUp transmitter, which accompanies a receiver chip that is specially designed to easily fit small wearable devices. Ossia also grabbed headlines at CES this year. The company demonstrated its “Cota” uncoupled wireless power platform and announced a recent investment by Molex, as Energous chases its first commercial launch of consumer-ready products.

“Overall, the early adoption of inductive technology by Apple, Samsung and some others is a step in the right direction, but there are still some challenges that need to be addressed before wireless charging technology can become mature in the market for wearable technology,” Yussuff said.  “At this stage, the biggest objective for many stakeholders is to avoid negative customer experiences that could create further barriers to adoption in the future.  Rising adoption and an increasing customer base will only help fuel more demand for this feature on devices — especially in an application where wireless charging can provide so many benefits.”

The demand for sensor hubs, dedicated processing elements used for low-power sensor processing tasks, is booming. In fact due to “always on” sensor processing trends and the limitations of battery technology, the overall market for all types of sensor hubs will exceed 1.0 billion units in 2015, rising to nearly 2.0 billion in 2018, according to IHS Inc. (NYSE: IHS), a global source of critical information and insight. Samsung, Apple and Motorola have already been using sensor hubs in their smartphones for a number of years, and Apple, Motorola and Microsoft explicitly advertise their use of sensor hubs or sensor cores in certain smartphones.

“The sensor hub market is incredibly dynamic, changing rapidly over the last two years, due in large part to Apple’s iPhones,” said Marwan Boustany, senior analyst for IHS Technology. “When Apple shifted from a discrete microcontroller to an integrated application-processor-based solution for the iPhone 6S line in 2015, it signaled to other manufacturers that this approach had reached maturity.”

Sensor_Hub_Forecast

According to the IHS MEMS & Sensors for Consumer and Mobile Intelligence Service, sensor hubs for high-end smartphones are changing rapidly from discrete microcontrollers (MCUs) used in the iPhone 6, Samsung Galaxy S6, and other high-end smartphones, to sensor hubs that are integrated into the application processor (AP), as in the iPhone 6S and Huawei Mate S.

“AP-sensor hubs will increasingly dominate the midrange to high-end smartphone segments in the next few years,” Boustany said. “Samsung is also testing alternative approaches to sensor hubs using a Global-Navigation-Satellite-System-integrated sensor hub from Broadcom in its Note 4 and S6 smartphones. We also expect to see sensor hubs that are integrated in the sensor package to make inroads in smartphones, especially in the midrange and low-end segments.”

As the use of AP sensor hubs rises, market share for MCU and other discrete sensor hubs will decline; however, because wearable devices require long battery life in a small package, they will continue to rely on discrete MCUs and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). With increasing numbers of smart watches entering the market, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 400 and other AP sensor hubs have also begun to penetrate the wearable-device market.

“Apple has chosen to use a discrete MCU in the first-generation Apple Watch, but the company may follow its handset strategy and integrate the sensor hub into its custom application processor in later generations,” Boustany said. “Smartwatches will likely follow trends seen in the smartphone segment, but with a higher penetration of MCUs than smartphones, due to tighter power-saving requirements.”

Fingerprint sensors, used primarily for mobile device login and payment security systems, have become an expected feature in high-end smartphones and, to a lesser extent, in tablets and notebook computers. Led by Apple’s iPhone juggernaut, unit shipments of fingerprint sensors were expected to have grown from 316 million in 2014 to 499 million in 2015 and will continue to increase each year to peak at 1.6 billion in 2020, according to IHS Inc. (NYSE: IHS), a global source of critical information and insight.

“The market for fingerprint sensors has heated up quickly, with explosive growth expected to continue in 2016 and beyond,” said Jamie Fox, principal analyst for IHS Technology. “The highest revenue growth is likely to be in the short term, as the market becomes more competitive, price erosion continues and the high-end smartphone market matures and becomes more saturated.”

Apple, which acquired fingerprint-sensor maker Authentec in 2012, continued to lead the fingerprint sensor market in 2015, due mainly to the popularity of its iPhone 6S and iPad product lines. Fingerprint Cards (FPC), with a wide range of customers in China and elsewhere, came from behind to tie second-ranked Samsung-supplier Synaptics in unit shipments in 2015; however, FPC actually led Synaptics in 2015 revenues at $316 million.

“As more smartphone brands have adopted fingerprint sensors, the market has expanded, and FPC reacted very quickly to the industry’s trend, shifting away from swipe sensors,” Fox said. “FPC’s strong customer-base in China also helped catapult the company into the top three fingerprint sensor makers in 2015.”

The current market for fingerprint sensors relies on capacitive sensors; however, led by Qualcomm, ultrasonic sensors that are even more resistant to user impersonation will soon enter the market. “InvenSense is another company to watch because it is expected to introduce its own line of ultrasonic fingerprint sensors in 2017,” Fox said.

Technavio’s latest report on the global microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) microphone market provides an analysis on the most important trends expected to impact the market outlook through 2020. Technavio defines an emerging trend as a factor that has the potential to significantly impact the market and contribute to its growth or decline.

According to the report, the global MEMS microphone market is expected to reach close to USD 2 billion by 2020, posting a CAGR of over 12%. MEMS microphones are being integrated in most audio applications and are growing in popularity due to their digital output, monolithic structure, and high tolerance to mechanical vibration. Apple and Samsung are the major revenue contributors to the market, as they purchase majority of the MEMS microphones for integration into their numerous consumer electronic products.

Asif Gani, a lead industry analyst from Technavio’s semiconductor equipment research team says, “MEMS microphones are important components in smartphones and tablets as they are used to improve sound clarity and eliminate ambient sounds. Thus, the rapid adoption of mobile devices will create a high demand for MEMS microphones. This technology is also gaining traction in the healthcare sector as it is being integrated into hearing aids and blood pressure monitoring systems.”

The top two emerging trends driving the global MEMS microphone market according to Technavio’s research analysts are:

Miniaturization

MEMS microphones are 10 times smaller than electret condenser microphones (ECMs), and further reductions in size are expected during the forecast period. These devices also have more functionalities than traditional ECMs.

“The small size makes the MEMS microphones preferable as it occupies less space when embedded in electronic devices. The small size coupled with low power consumption adds to the sturdiness of these devices, making them efficient in providing high-quality output,” adds Asif.

Advanced MEMS packaging

The requirement to integrate 9-axis sensors in a single package has increased the importance of MEMS packaging. Rapid advances in technology and increase in unit shipments of MEMS sensors has also made it important for vendors to achieve standardization in packaging. The other types of advanced MEMS packaging include low-temperature wafer bonding, doped polysilicon, and silicon interposers for packaging and packing MEMS at wafer dicing level.

Competitive vendor landscape

With the entry of numerous new vendors in the global MEMS microphone market, competition in the market has increased, which in turn has resulted in the decline of average selling prices of MEMS microphones. This is compelling vendors to offer their products at low prices, thus affecting their revenue.

Knowles dominates the market with almost 50% of the overall market share. Companies such as AAC and GoerTek are dependent on demand from Apple, who is their largest client, and accounts for more than 40% of the MEMS microphone revenue for both companies. Both AAC and GoerTek MEMS source their die technology from Infineon.

Worldwide IT spending is forecast to total $3.54 trillion dollars in 2016, just a 0.6 percent increase over 2015 spending of $3.52 trillion dollars, according to Gartner, Inc. 2015 saw the largest U.S. dollar drop in IT spending since Gartner began tracking IT spending. $216 billion dollars less was spent on IT in 2015 than in 2014 and 2014 spending levels won’t be surpassed until 2019.

“The rising U.S. dollar is the villain behind 2015 results,” said John-David Lovelock, research vice president at Gartner. “U.S. multinationals’ revenue faced currency headwinds in 2015. However, in 2016 those headwinds go away and they can expect an additional 5 percent growth.”

The Gartner Worldwide IT Spending Forecast is the leading indicator of major technology trends across the hardware, software, IT services and telecom markets. For more than a decade, global IT and business executives have been using these highly anticipated quarterly reports to recognize market opportunities and challenges, and base their critical business decisions on proven methodologies rather than guesswork.

Table 1. Worldwide IT Spending Forecast (Billions of U.S. Dollars)

 

2015 Spending

2015 Growth (%)

2016 Spending

2016 Growth (%)
Data Center Systems

170

1.8

175

3.0
Software

310

-1.4

326

5.3
Devices

653

-5.8

641

-1.9
IT Services

912

-4.5

940

3.1
Communications Services

1,472

-8.3

1,454

-1.2
Overall IT

3,517

-5.8

3,536

0.6

Source: Gartner (January 2016)

The devices market (PCs, ultramobiles, mobile phones, tablets and printers) is forecast to decline 1.9 percent in 2016. The combination of economic conditions preventing countries such as Russia, Japan and Brazil from returning to stronger growth, together with a shift in phone spending in emerging markets to lower-cost phones, is overlaid with weak tablet adoption in regions where there was an expectation of growth.

Ultramobile premium devices are expected to drive the PC market forward with the move to Windows 10 and Intel Skylake-based PCs. Gartner has slightly reduced the speed of adoption over the forecast period, as buying in Eurasia, Japan, and the Middle East and North Africa moves away from purchasing these relatively more expensive devices in the short term, but expect them to revert back to buying in 2017 as the economic environment stabilizes.

Data center systems’ spending is projected to reach $75 billion in 2016, a 3.0 percent increase from 2015. The server market is the segment that has seen the largest change since the previous quarter’s forecast. The server market has seen stronger-than-expected demand from the hyperscale sector, which has lasted longer than expected. Typically, this segment has spikey demand which lasts for a couple of quarters before moderating. Demand in this segment is expected to continue to be strong through 2016.

The worsening economic environment in emerging markets has had little effect on the global enterprise software spending forecast for 2016, with IT spending on pace to total $326 billion, a 5.3 percent increase from 2015. However, key countries in emerging markets, particularly Brazil and Russia, face escalating political and economic challenges. Organizations in those regions must balance cost cutting with growth opportunities during times of economic concern.

Spending in the IT services market is expected to return to growth in 2016, following a decline of 4.5 percent in 2015. IT services spending is projected to reach 940 billion in 2016, up 3.1 percent from 2015. This is due to accelerating momentum in cloud infrastructure adoption and buyer acceptance of the cloud model.

Telecom services spending is projected to decline 1.2 percent in 2016, with spending reaching $1,454 trillion. The segment will be impacted by the abolition of roaming charges in the European Union and parts of North America. While this will increase mobile voice and data traffic, it will not be enough to counter the corresponding loss of revenue from lost roaming charges and premiums.

More-detailed analysis on the outlook for the IT industry will be presented in the webinar “IT Spending Forecast, 4Q15 Update: What Will Make Headlines in 2016.”