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UMC (NYSE: UMC; TWSE: 2303), a global semiconductor foundry, today announced that its board of directors has appointed senior vice presidents SC Chien and Jason Wang as co-presidents of the company, following Po-Wen Yen’s retirement as UMC CEO. The co-presidents are collectively accountable for the overall performance of UMC, and will report to Chairman Stan Hung directly. The transition will become effective immediately.

“Co-presidents Chien and Wang bring complimentary experience and capabilities to enable UMC to have the best minds committed to our most critical decisions and execution ability,” said Chairman Hung. “With their respective roles clearly defined, I anticipate a very smooth transition as we enter the next stage of UMC’s growth. Our priorities going forward will include a high degree of customer focus, consistent operational excellence, clear investment strategy, and maximizing shareholder value.”

Chairman Hung continued, “We would like to extend our sincere appreciation to CEO Yen for his 30+ years of dedicated service. Under his leadership, UMC has established a solid foundation and legacy for our co-presidents to build upon, and we wish him all the best on his retirement as he continues to provide his knowledge, experience, and service to our community and society.”

CEO Yen commented, “It has been a rewarding opportunity to have helped UMC evolve during my five years as the company’s CEO. I am honored to have worked with an exceptionally dedicated and skilled team of executives and managers to bring benefits to UMC and its customers, and firmly believe in the company’s positive direction going forward. I have worked closely with Mr. Chien and Mr. Wang for many years, and am convinced in their ability to lead UMC to new heights as co-presidents. Meanwhile, after my retirement, I look forward to further increasing my involvement in social and charitable activities in order to bring heightened awareness to the importance of mutual prosperity with our surrounding environment and society.”

The responsibilities of the co-presidents will be structured as follows:

  • SC Chien will focus on the core manufacturing and technology aspects of UMC including R&D and operations. Mr. Chien possesses more than 30 years of semiconductor R&D experience. He joined UMC in 1989, and throughout his 28 years at UMC, he has led multiple functions within the company, including ATD (advanced technology development), STD (specialty technology development), CE (customer engineering), TTD (technology transfer and development), IPDS (IP & design support) and CM (Corporate marketing).
  • Jason Wang will focus on the business aspects of UMC, including corporate strategy & planning, sales & marketing, and customer engineering. Mr. Wang joined UMC as vice president of Corporate Marketing in 2008. From 2009 to 2014, he served as president of UMC-USA responsible for UMC North American business. Most recently, he was senior vice president in charge of Worldwide Sales and Corporate Marketing.

IC Insights recently released its Update to its 2017 IC Market Drivers Report.  The Update includes IC Insights’ latest outlooks on the smartphone, automotive, PC/tablet and Internet of Things markets.

The Update shows a final 2016 ranking of the top smartphone leaders in terms of unit shipments.  As shown in Figure 1, 7 of the top 10, and 10 of the top 14 companies were headquartered in China with two South Korean (Samsung and LG) and one U.S. (Apple) and one Taiwanese company (Asus) making up the remainder of the companies listed.  It is interesting to note that OPPO and Vivo, the two fastest growing smartphone suppliers on the list last year with each company growing almost 90%, are owned by the same China-based parent company—BBK Electronics.

Samsung and Apple dominated the smartphone market from 2014 through 2016.  In total, these two companies shipped 555 million smartphones and held a combined 39% share of the total smartphone market in 2015.  Although these two companies still shipped over one-half billion smartphones (526 million) in 2016, their combined smartphone unit marketshare dropped four percentage points to 35%.

Samsung’s total smartphone unit sales were down by 4% in 2016 to 311 million units, a weak showing in a total smartphone market that grew by 4%.  With orders sagging for Apple’s pre-iPhone 7 smartphones (the iPhone 7 was first released on September 7, 2016), Apple’s total smartphone shipments dropped by 7% in 2016, much worse than the total 4% growth rate exhibited for the worldwide smartphone market. Although Samsung and Apple still hold a strong share of the high-end smartphone segment (>$200), it appears that both companies are losing smartphone marketshare to the up-and-coming Chinese producers like Huawei, OPPO, and Vivo.

Overall, there was very little “middle ground” with regard to smartphone shipment growth rates among the top 14 suppliers in 2016.  As shown, seven of the top 14 companies registered declines in 2016 shipments while five companies logged 25% or better increases.  In fact, four Chinese smartphone suppliers’ shipments surged by greater than 30% (Vivo, OPPO, Gionee, and Huawei) in 2016.  LeEco, which only began shipping its smartphone handsets in 2015, became Coolpad’s largest shareholder in October 2016. As a result, IC Insights combined the two companies’ smartphone sales for 2015 and 2016.

Figure 1

Figure 1

In 2014, Japan-based Sony was ranked 10th in smartphone shipments with sales of 40.0 million handsets. However, in 2016, Sony’s shipments of smartphones had dropped precipitously to only 15.1 million (with sales expected to increase only slightly in 2017 to about 16 million).  In contrast to the weakening fortunes of Sony, 2015-2016 smartphone sales from most of the top China-based suppliers surged.  In fact, Huawei, the third largest smartphone producer in 2016, has set its sights on surpassing Apple within the next five years.

Combined, the 10 top-14 smartphone suppliers that are based in China shipped 587 million smartphones in 2016, a 15% increase from the 511 million smartphones these 10 companies shipped in 2015.  As a result, the top 10 Chinese smartphone suppliers together held a 39% share of the worldwide smartphone market in 2016, up three points from the 36% share these companies held in 2015 and seven points better than the 32% combined share these companies held in 2014.

Today SEMI announced that the two-day Strategic Materials Conference (SMC) − devoted to materials technology and business drivers in the electronics supply chain − is slated for September 19-20 at San Jose’s Doubletree by Hilton Hotel. For over a decade, SMC has been the leading conference dedicated to electronic materials. The 2017 conference theme, Materials Accelerating Innovation, will delve into the demand drivers for new materials. A full conference agenda and registration details can be found here.

Electronic materials and processes will continue to enable the extension of semiconductor device development for the foreseeable future. SMC provides a comprehensive review of the economic and environmental influences, strategic and technical challenges, and regional trends. The conference also highlights opportunities in adjacent markets and basic research activities feeding the supply chain. Presentations by industry thought leaders, academics, and analysts will analyze technologies and trends enabling extension of innovative solutions in wafer processing. SMC 2017 sessions include:

  • Keynotes:
    • Mark Papermaster, CTO and senior VP, AMD
    • Dave Hemker, CTO and senior VP, Lam Research
    • Sunny Hui, senior VP, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC)
  • Economic/Market Trends: The Consolidation Game (M&A), China, 200mm & More: Experts weigh in on trends in materials and semiconductor equipment growth, demand, and applications, as well as the impact of the global economy on the semiconductor market.
  • Process Challenges at 5nm & Beyond: Leading-edge transistor development is focused on scaling and connecting vertical structures for advanced designs bringing new process and material challenges, requiring collaboration across the semiconductor supply chain.
  • Universities − Innovation Drivers: University research has been key to enabling the industry’s exponential growth. As the industry faces daunting challenges, the role of university research in materials is more critical than ever.
  • The Future of Materials Market in China: Speakers from government, suppliers, and multi-nationals will discuss China’s semiconductor materials industry, government policies, growth opportunities, and best practices for operating in this expanding environment.
  • Materials Supply Chain Challenges in Adjacent Industries: Electronic devices take many forms beyond silicon. Flexible electronics, embedded memory, medical devices, automotive electronics, Flat Panel Displays, and OLEDs have unique challenges.
  • Heterogeneous Integration – Implications on Materials & Packaging: With 10nm fab budgets estimated at up to $10 billion, “sticker shock” has set in. Enter Heterogeneous Integration — integrating separately manufactured components into higher-level assemblies to enable expanded functionality at a lower cost than traditional scaling.
  • Panel Discussion – Business Strategy and Collaboration Model:  Panelists will address current and emerging material challenges through focused R&D Investment, collaboration throughout the vertical supply chain, and application of innovative business strategy to ensure win-win for all participating companies.

The Strategic Materials Conference attracts the key players from every segment of the semiconductor manufacturing industry. The conference provides comprehensive, in-depth content and exceptional networking opportunities for professionals who share strategic objectives for the electronics manufacturing ecosystem. To learn more and to register, visit www.semi.org/SMC.

Silicon Integration Initiative Inc. (Si2), a research and development joint venture, announced today the contribution of a new integrated circuit programming language developed by Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) for the 2D pattern analysis of sub-20nm mask layouts.

The new language, called OPAL (Open Pattern Analysis for Layout), is a declarative language for geometric pattern matching. “It’s a high-level, modeling language that can describe layout patterns of any complexity,” according to Jake Buurma, an Si2 senior fellow. “OPAL provides an essential set of geometric expressions that can find specific patterns that detract from yield and it can find the robust patterns that improve first-pass yield over normal manufacturing variances.”

For example, in sub-20nm processes, wires used for interconnect have an ideal pitch for the mask to chip image transfer during lithography, Buurma explained. “But these wires also have a prohibited pitch where the image transfer is poor since lithography cannot faithfully reproduce certain 2D patterns. The OPAL language searches for the layout patterns of both yield detractors and yield enhancers and then back annotates markers onto those patterns that will have an impact on manufacturing yield.”

“At Intel, we’ve been developing layout modeling languages for over 10 years and OPAL is our latest modeling advancement which is capable of describing any geometric constraint regardless of complexity and has the potential to automatically create test layout, runsets, and tool models,” said Ramond Rodríguez, director, Strategic CAD Capabilities at Intel. “Along with several technology contributions Intel has made to Si2 which extend the Si2 OpenAccess database, we’re excited that OPAL can leverage some of our prior contributions, such as oaxPOP, which is a geometric engine for polygon operators on OpenAccess.”

“OpenAccess has always had the ability to store mask layout constraints in its C++ database, but the actual checking of those constraints required an expert to program an exact sequence of steps into a design rule checking engine,” Buurma said. “But as a high-level, declarative language, OPAL can model complex 2D patterns by just describing a specific pattern with a few geometric expressions.”

Si2 will host the OPAL project and launch an OPAL Working Group to evaluate and entertain proposals for an industry roadmap on how to best utilize the newly contributed technology from Intel.

Gyuszi Suto, principle engineer at Intel and the lead developer of OPAL, said that “Working with an R&D joint venture is the best way for a team of experts, like an Si2 Working Group, to specify a standard methodology that allows users to clearly and concisely write geometric searches that find specific 2D patterns in their layouts.”

At DAC 2017, Si2 will hold an OPAL workshop where a team of industry experts will describe the rapidly growing number of layout and pattern constraints that appear at sub-20nm manufacturing nodes. The complimentary workshop will be held Monday, June 19, 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., in Room 7 at the Austin Convention Center. For reservations visit http://www.si2.org/events/opal/.

Cypress Semiconductor Corporation (“Cypress”) (NASDAQ: CY) today announced that Executive Chairman Ray Bingham has tendered his resignation as Executive Chairman and is stepping down from the Board of Directors. He also notified the Board that he was declining to stand for re-election at the Annual Meeting. The Board has accepted his decision. In addition, Eric Benhamou has stepped down as Lead Independent Director. He will remain on the Board. In response to these developments, the Board of Directors has appointed current independent director W. Steve Albrecht as its new Chairman. As a world-renowned expert in the field of corporate governance, the Board unanimously decided that Steve is the right person for the job. Finally, the independent members of the Cypress Board decided, given CEO Hassane El-Khoury’s superior performance, there is no longer a need for the Executive Chairman role. All of these changes are effective immediately.

“It has been a great privilege to serve as Chairman of Cypress’ Board of Directors and most recently Executive Chairman, alongside some of the smartest minds in the business, at such an important time in Cypress’ history,” said Bingham. “In the last year, we have accomplished a great deal, including removing an underperforming CEO who was no longer right for the Company, and appointing a dynamic CEO who I believe will continue to lead the Company upward and implement the successful turnaround driven by the Cypress 3.0 strategy. While it saddens me to leave the Board at such a time, I believe that the nature of this proxy contest has become a distraction to the Company and the management team’s ability to fully execute Cypress 3.0 – the strategy that is putting Cypress back on track. I wish Hassane, his team and the Board members all the best in the future and look forward to watching them accomplish great things in the months and years to come.”

“On behalf of the full Board, I want to thank Ray for his years of contributions to Cypress,” said W. Steve Albrecht, Chairman of Cypress. “His extensive experience and deep industry knowledge played an enormous part in the turnaround that started with the removal of T.J. Rodgers as CEO and member of the Board and culminated with the appointment of Hassane as the new CEO and his formulation and execution of the Cypress 3.0 strategy. The Board and I remain as committed and as focused as ever to good corporate governance, driving growth and creating value for all of our stockholders. I’m honored to take on the role and responsibility of Chairman and pledge to serve in the best interests of all Cypress’ stakeholders through my service on the Board. I am also grateful that Eric Benhamou will continue to serve on the Board. He brings a wealth of experience that is highly relevant to our new 3.0 strategy.”

Dr. Albrecht, who is a National Association of Corporate Directors (“NACD”) Board Leadership Fellow, is highly acclaimed in the corporate governance field, having chaired the audit committee and served on the nomination/governance committee of nearly every board he has served on. Dr. Albrecht also teaches the MBA corporate governance and board of directors’ class at Brigham Young University (“BYU”) and has authored a text on corporate governance and boards of directors. Albrecht has done extensive research and writing on financial reporting, business fraud, ethics and corporate governance. His research has resulted in the publication of over one hundred and twenty-five articles in professional and academic journals. He is the author or co-author of over 25 books or monographs, several of which are on fraud, integrity, financial and managerial accounting and corporate governance/boards of directors. Dr. Albrecht is also a certified public accountant, certified internal auditor and certified fraud examiner with extensive experience in controls and financial accounting matters, with a particular expertise in multinational companies.

Dr. Albrecht has served on the boards of directors of four public companies and five private companies. In addition to Cypress Semiconductor, he currently serves on the Boards of Directors of Red Hat, Inc. and SkyWest, Inc. At BYU, Dr. Albrecht is the Gunnel Endowed Professor in the Marriott School of Management and a BYU Wheatley Fellow. Prior to BYU, he taught at Stanford Universityand the University of Illinois and served as a trustee for both the Financial Accounting Foundation (which oversees the FASB) and COSO (the organization that established the internal control framework used by corporations). He has consulted with numerous corporations and has been an expert witness in 37 fraud cases, including many of the largest financial statement fraud cases in the United States. In 2006, Dr. Albrecht was named by Utah Business as one of its first class of top five corporate directors in the state of Utah. In 2013 he was included in the NACD Directorship 100, being named one of the top 50 Corporate Directors in America. Later this month, Dr. Albrecht will receive the Lifetime Outstanding Director Award in the State of Utah.

Dow Corning today introduced Dow Corning CL-1000 Optical Silicone Binder, a new, more thermally stable, high refractive index (RI) material available only in China that is formulated to expand design options for high-power chip-scale LED packaging (CSP). The latest addition to the company’s portfolio of advanced solutions for LED lighting, CL-1000 Binder offers best-in-class thermal stability and is optimized for compression molding processes.

“The growing adoption of chip-scale packaging is enabling lighting designs that pack increasing numbers of LED dies more densely together in smaller form factors,” said Takuhiro Tsuchiya, global marketing manager at Dow Corning. “CL-1000 Optical Silicone Binder is Dow Corning’s response to the rapidly rising temperatures within these emerging applications. A more thermally stable iteration of our high-RI optical materials, this new product is formulated specifically to help enhance the robustness of high-power CSP designs.”

Validated through Dow Corning’s testing, the thermal stability of CL-1000 Optical Silicone Binder enabled it to exhibit lower degradation and improved maintenance of mechanical properties vs. other high-RI silicone encapsulants after 2,000 hours exposure to temperatures above 180°C. The new high-RI material also delivers excellent photo-stability with high clarity to further support reliable performance over the life of LED devices.

New CL-1000 Binder demonstrates good conformance with highly reflective Dow Corning WR-3001 and WR-3100 Die Edge Coat materials, enabling CSP packaging with enhanced reliability over longer periods. The product’s high Shore D60 hardness also enables LED packaging to withstand dicing operations.

CL-1000 Optical Silicone Binder leverages the same phenyl silicone chemistry as Dow Corning’s other industry-leading high RI optical encapsulants, which can help optimize the efficiency of next-generation LED lighting designs without costly investments in more powerful LED dies.

A market leader in materials, expertise and collaborative innovation for LED lighting concepts, Dow Corning offers solutions that span the entire LED value chain, adding reliability and efficiency for sealing, protecting, adhering, cooling and shaping light across all lighting applications.

AI is driving the development of 3D TSV and heterogeneous integration technologies. With its new 3D TSV & 2.5D business update report, Yole Développement (Yole), part of Yole Group of Companies investigates the advanced packaging industry and takes a closer look on the AI impact on this market.

“3D integration is clearly offering today unequalled performances suiting exactly the pressing needs of AI applications,” commented Emilie Jolivet, Technology & Market Analyst at Yole.

Initially developed for niche markets including MEMS devices and memories for datacenters, 3D integration is entering in a new era. The world population increase, the exploding smartphones market, the development of new functionalities such as voice/image recognition… all these parameters directly contribute to the development of AI and deep learning solutions, all based on 3D integration technologies. AI is not a concept anymore but a reality that is skyrocketing the development of disruptive advanced packaging technologies.

This year, the “More than Moore” market research and strategy consulting company is moving a step forwards the applications side. Its advanced packaging & semiconductor manufacturing team investigates the industry evolution, taking into account promising sectors such as deep learning, the end-users’ needs and required specifications for final systems. Yole’s analysts combine their advanced packaging expertise and their knowledge of the different industries to perform up-to-date and innovative reports. The 3D TSV & 2.5D business update report is a good example, with a strong focus on the high-performance sector.

Why do we need 3D TSV solutions, especially in high performance applications?

According to Yole, benefits are numerous and are part of the major issues initially identified by the industrial companies. Bandwidth, latency and power consumption are the key words of these innovations… Emilie Jolivet from Yole details some below:

  •  When two chips or more are integrated on an interposer, distance between logic and memory is shortened which enables lower latency and lower power consumption.
•  DRAM, based on a 3D TSV solution, is offering an unequalled bandwidth performance because of the ability of TSV solution to connect several layers of the device.
•  Artificial intelligence and specifically deep learning mostly intensively using memory and computing also need 3D TSV approaches. Both applications are driving the demand of interposer and 3D memory cubes.

AI and deep learning, both part of the high performance applications segment are might be the most impressive applications. However, datacenter networking, AR/VR and autonomous driving are not so far behind. Industrial companies progressively penetrate these market segments by developing dedicated approaches:

  •  Both 3D IC leaders, TSMC and Globalfoundries are involved in the development of new solutions focused on 3D SoC.
•  Samsung introduced its interposer solutions in 2017, SPIL is developing its own 2.5D solutions
•  STMicroelectronics is working on 3D interconnections and interposers for various applications including silicon photonics, data centers.

In addition, companies like Intel, Nvidia are completely re-thinking their growth strategy: “Major IC companies which missed the smartphone business clearly don’t want to miss the AI revolution,” commented Emilie Jolivet from Yole. From their side, investors are part of the playground. Therefore, they all re-align their strategy to have product portfolio for serving AI/deep learning needs. Datacenters, cloud computing, AI, autonomous driving are becoming key words for venture capitalists.

Yole’s analysts are convinced of the added value of 3D integration technologies. AI and deep learning are new applications to consider but not only. AR/VR will be also part of the 3D integration future. And the latest announcement from AMD regarding its new Radeon Pro Vega graphic card dedicated to Apple’s new iMac Pro is another step towards the computing applications™.

A detailed description of the 3D TSV and 2.5D Business Update – Market and Technology Trends 2017 is available on i-micronews.com, advanced packaging reports section.

By Paula Doe, SEMI

Fabs and tool makers are starting to pay a lot more attention to suppliers of components and subsystems– as defects in these materials start to impact yields at 14nm and below. Solving these emerging issues, though, will take a collaborative effort to determine what parameters matter, how to measure them, and how to trace them back across an extended supply chain, suggests Pawitter Mangat, GLOBALFOUNDRIES director of Global Incoming Quality, one of the speakers who’ll discuss these issues in the program on component impact on yields at advanced nodes, July 11, at SEMICON West 2017.

“As we move below 22nm, even the composition of the materials in the subcomponents become critical,” he says. “But currently there is no general agreement on what the important parameters are to control for particular applications, or on how to measure these parameters with the same methods for consistent results.” The issues are often with the industrial grade raw materials from which the subcomponents are made, and these industrial chemical suppliers may be reluctant to invest in controls as the semiconductor industry represents only a tiny percentage of their business. “This means we need to look beyond our immediate suppliers to a wider ecosystem of components and material suppliers, and to extend digital traceability through this wider ecosystem as well,” he notes. “If we have an issue, we need to be able to quickly trace it back to the cause.”

“The 7nm world tends to forget that all subcomponents, everything, has been developed for other industries, not the semiconductor industry, and the makers of all these basic pumps and valves and O-rings have no way of knowing what the important parameters are to prevent defects in the final semiconductor devices,” notes Dalia Vernikovsky, CEO, Applied Seals North America, and co-chair of the SEMI Semiconductor Components, Instruments, and SubSystems (SCIS) special interest group.

She suggests the major users and suppliers get together to come up with the basic parameters for things like metal contamination, surface cleanliness or outgassing for specific components for specific processes, and then agree on a common way to measure these parameters, to enable tracing and characterizing the defects in the final devices.   This is also the first step towards specifying and controlling the parameters of the raw materials used in the components and subsystems that also matter. “If I am going to push my supplier, I have to be able to show him what the end customers’ requirement is,” notes Vernikovsky.  “This is not about individual companies’ intellectual property. It’s the basic requirement of the IC industry that we all need to meet, and then we can compete on a higher level.”

Other speakers at the Semiconductor Components, Instruments and Subsystems (SCIS) session include Norm Armour, Micron Technology, Managing Director Worldwide Facilities and Corporate EHSS; Sanchali Bhattaharjee, Intel, Engineering Manager, Global Supply Chain Management; and a panel with the speakers moderated by Dan Hutcheson, VLSI Research, CEO and Chairman. The SEMI SCIS special interest group will also have an open meeting on their current collaborative efforts July 13 at the Marriott Marquis. See www.semiconwest.org/programs-catalog/enabling-hvm-advanced-process-nodes.

Market for MEMS microphones and ECMs, micro-speakers and audio ICs will be worth US$20 billion in 2022. Compared to 2006, the audio business is about to experience profound changes.

When Yole Développement (Yole), part of Yole Group of Companies released its first microphone report in 2006, the MEMS microphone industry was at the early stage, with emerging players and applications. The “More than Moore” market research & strategy consulting company was announcing a US$116 million market for 260 million units. Today, market figures are at another scale. Therefore, 2017 volume will reach the 5 billion units milestone for a market value over US$1 billion.
Microphone has become a key technology for major MEMS and semiconductor companies. Knowles, Goertek, AAC as well as new comers such as Vesper are part of today’s landscape.

acoustic mems market

Acoustic MEMS & Audio Solutions report reviews the complete evolution of the audio world including MEMS microphones, ECMs, micro-speakers and audio ICs since 2010.

In parallel, System Plus Consulting and KnowMade combine their expertise to perform dedicated reports focused on leading microphone companies, Vesper and Knowles: the Vesper VM1000™ microphone report is a reverse engineering & costing analysis highlighting the innovative piezoelectric technology developed by Vesper. Indeed the company has developed the first piezoelectric MEMS technology microphone. “This innovation reshuffles the cards of the microphone industry, mainly based on capacitive silicon MEMS technologies until now”, commented Romain Fraux, System Plus Consulting’s CTO.

Under competitive conditions, Yole’s analysts interviewed Vesper’s CEO, Matt Crowley to understand Vesper’s strategy and learn more about its latest device. With this disruptive solution, Vesper starts playing the big league with leading companies such as Knowles, Goertek… Full interview: The future is voice-powered.

The Knowles MEMS Microphones patent-to-product mapping details the main patented features of Knowles’ device embedded in iPhone 7 Plus™. Mixing data from System Plus Consulting’s teardown and KnowMade’s IP analysis, this report makes the connection between the features of Knowles technologies and its patent portfolio. The report also reviews Knowles’s patent landscape and the IP litigations involving patents identified in the Patent-to-Product mapping analysis.
“The technology developed by Knowles in the early 2000s has strongly impacted the audio landscape triggering an unprecedented revolution,” said Coralie Legreneur, KnowMade’s IP analyst. Knowles never stopped improving its solution and today, within a very intense and competitive global market, the company is showing strong IP activities.

Audio is becoming a key function of multiple existing and new products that increasingly has to be analysed as a complete landscape compared to independent devices.

“From mobile phones to cars, from home assistants to drones, audio products like microphones, speakers and audio ICs are essential for all the new systems driving consumer electronic markets”, comments Guillaume Girardin Technology & Market Analyst, MEMS & Sensors at Yole.
The total audio business was worth more than US$15 billion in 2016. Moreover, Yole announces today a CAGR close to 6%, in 2022. The audio device market will become a key feature in all the applications it is involved in. According to the Acoustic MEMS & Audio Solutions report, there is clearly room for more benefits in the audio supply and value chain, as well as other significant changes.

At the device level, the MEMS microphone market has almost reached the US$1 billion milestone, with a value of US$ 993 million in 2016. Combined with the US$700 million ECM market, now the acquisition of sound is almost a US$2 billion value market.

The µspeaker market is estimated to be worth US$8.7 billion. In addition to these two visible elements of the audio chain, the audio IC market, which includes codecs, DSPs and amplifiers, should reach US$4.3 billion in 2016.

Mobile remains the main market segment for microphones. This sector was very demanding in terms of volume but not so much in terms of performance: against two microphones per smartphone initially, mobile manufacturers developed solutions with more than five devices per system. “We are today in a new phase. With innovative technologies, smarter software, more algorithms, we reach a new level of performances and see solutions with higher value,” said Guillaume Girardin from Yole.

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), representing U.S. leadership in semiconductor manufacturing, design, and research, today announced worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $31.3 billion for the month of April 2017, an increase of 20.9 percent from the April 2016 total of $25.9 billion and 1.3 percent more than last month’s total of $30.9 billion. April marked the global market’s largest year-to-year growth since September 2010. All monthly sales numbers are compiled by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization and represent a three-month moving average. Additionally, a new WSTS industry forecast projects annual global market growth of 11.5 percent in 2017 and 2.7 percent in 2018, followed by a slight decrease of 0.2 percent in 2019.

GSR graph 2_med

 

“The global semiconductor market has grown at an impressive rate through the beginning of 2017, culminating with April’s year-to-year growth of 21 percent, the global market’s largest increase in nearly seven years,” said John Neuffer, president and CEO, Semiconductor Industry Association. “Although driven in part by tremendous growth in the memory market, sales of non-memory products also grew by double digits in April, and all major regional markets posted substantial year-to-year gains. The global market is projected to experience significant annual growth this year, with slower growth expected next year and roughly flat sales in 2019.”

Regionally, year-to-year sales increased in China (30.0 percent), the Americas (26.9 percent), Asia Pacific/All Other (14.1 percent), Europe (12.7 percent), and Japan (12.0 percent). Compared with last month, sales were up slightly across all regions: Asia Pacific/All Other (2.0 percent), the Americas (1.8 percent), Japan (1.4 percent), China (0.7 percent), and Europe (0.5 percent).

Additionally, SIA today endorsed the WSTS Spring 2017 global semiconductor sales forecast, which projects the industry’s worldwide sales will be $377.8 billion in 2017. This would mark the industry’s highest-ever annual sales, an 11.5 percent increase from the 2016 sales total. WSTS projects year-to-year increases across all regional markets for 2017: Asia Pacific (12.4 percent), the Americas (12.2 percent), Europe (8.7 percent), and Japan (6.6 percent). Beyond 2017, growth in the semiconductor market is expected to slow across all regions. WSTS tabulates its semi-annual industry forecast by convening an extensive group of global semiconductor companies that provide accurate and timely indicators of semiconductor trends.