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The SOI market is expected to be valued at USD 1,859.3 Million by 2022, growing at a CAGR of 29.1% between 2017 and 2022, according to a new market research report “Silicon on Insulator Market by Wafer Size (200mm, 300mm), Wafer Type (RFSOI, FDSOI), Technology (BESOI, ELTRAN, SoS, SiMOX, Smart Cut), Product, Application (Automotive, Computing & Mobile, Entertainment & Gaming, Photonics) – Global Forecast to 2022,” published by MarketsandMarkets,

The factors that are driving the growth of this market include the growth in the consumer electronics market, low wafer and gate cost, low operating voltage, and miniaturization of semiconductor devices.

“300mm SOI wafers expected to hold the largest size of the SOI market by 2022“

300mm SOI wafers are expected to lead the overall SOI market by 2022. 300mm wafers is the latest size category in the SOI market. FDSOI wafers-the latest addition to the SOI wafer type segments-are built on the 300mm wafers. Besides that, the production of 300mm RF chips has already been started, which will further boost the demand for 300mm wafers. Soitec, in partnership with its Chinese partner Simgui, is planning to roll out the production of 300 mm RFSOI wafers. Also, the leading chip manufacturers, including Broadcom (U.S.), Qorvo (U.S.), Qualcomm (U.S.), and Murata (Japan), are planning to start the production of 300mm wafers.

“SOI market for FDSOI wafers expected to grow at a high rate between 2017 and 2022“

The SOI market for FDSOI wafers is expected to grow at a significant rate between 2017 and 2022. FDSOI is the next version of PDSOI wafers. FDSOI wafers stand out from the conventional bulk CMOS wafers as they have two additional layers. FDSOI wafers are around 4-5 times costlier than the conventional bulk CMOS, but they provide enhanced performance of the chips produced, power efficiency, and reduction in the energy consumption. FDSOI wafers are produced over the 300 mm SOI wafers and are competing with the FinFET technology.

“APAC expected to lead the SOI market between 2017 and 2022“

APAC is one of the key growth regions for the SOI market. APAC has been the fastest in adopting SOI products compared with other regions. This early start has kick-started the market; thus, from the demand side, APAC is a major player. APAC is witnessing high applicability of SOI owing to the presence of a large number of consumer electronics companies, smartphone manufacturers, and advanced ICT technologies. The high demand for smartphones is one of the key factors contributing to the market growth, as 99% of the smartphones make use of SOI wafers.

The major players operating in the SOI market are Soitec (France), Shin-Etsu (Japan), GlobalWafers (Taiwan), GlobalFoundries (U.S.), STMicroelectronics (Switzerland), NXP Semiconductors (Netherlands), Murata Manufacturing (Japan), Sony Corporation (Japan), MagnaChip Semiconductor (South Korea), TSMC (Taiwan), and Qualcomm (U.S.).

IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO) announced that the worldwide semiconductor market showed signs of recovery in 2016 following a down year in 2015. In 2016, the market posted a year-end growth rate of 2 percent with chip growth seen across multiple market segments. Global revenue came in at $352.4 billion, up from $345.6 billion in 2015.

Key growth drivers

Key drivers of this growth were DRAM and NAND flash memory, which grew more than 30 percent collectively in the second half of 2016. Key to this turnaround was supply constraints and strong demand, coupled with an ASP increase. We expect these factors to drive memory revenue into record territory throughout 2017.

Semiconductors used for automotive applications were also a key driver of 2016 growth, with a 9.7 percent expansion by year-end. Chip content in cars continues to climb, with micro components and memory integrated circuits (IC) leading the pack, both experiencing over 10 percent growth in automotive applications.

“The strong component demand that drove record capital expenditures in 2016 also provided the industry with advanced technology platforms which will support further semiconductor revenue growth in 2017,” said Len Jelinek, Senior Director and Chief Analyst for Semiconductor Manufacturing at IHS Markit.

Continued consolidation

Continuing a recent trend, the semiconductor market saw another year of intense consolidation with no signs of slowing down. The year began with the close of the biggest-ever acquisition in the semiconductor industry. Avago Technologies finalized its $37 billion acquisition of Broadcom Corp. to form Broadcom Limited, which jumped to rank fourth in terms of market share (Avago previously ranked 11th). This acquisition resulted in the newly formed company increasing its market share in several market segments, including taking a large lead in the wired application market.

“After some selective divestiture, Broadcom Limited has focused on market segments where its customer base holds dominant market share positions. These also tend to be markets which have fairly stable and visible TAM growth,” said Senior Analyst Brad Shaffer. “These characteristics may help entrench the company’s market share positions in areas where it chooses to compete,” added Shaffer.

Among the top 20 semiconductor suppliers, ON Semiconductor and nVidia enjoyed the largest revenue growth, followed closely by MediaTek. ON and MediaTek achieved growth through multiple acquisitions, while nVidia saw an enormous demand for its GPU technology as it moves into new markets and applications.

Qualcomm remained the top fabless company in 2016 while MediaTek and nVidia moved into the number two and three spots, respectively. The fabless company with the largest market share gain was Cirrus Logic, a major supplier for Apple and Samsung mobile phones. They moved up five spots in 2016, to number 10.

Intel remains in the number one spot for semiconductor suppliers, followed by Samsung. Qualcomm comes in at number three, with plans to increase its market share in 2017 with its pending acquisition of NXP.

Find more information on this topic in the latest release of the Competitive Landscaping Tool from the Semiconductors & Components service at IHS Markit.

Combined sales for optoelectronics, sensors and actuators, and discrete semiconductors increased 2% in 2016 to reach a seventh consecutive record-high level of $67.9 billion, but growth rates in the three market segments were all over the map last year. Optoelectronics sales fell 4% in 2016, primarily because of the first decline in lamp devices in 15 years due to an oversupply of high-brightness light-emitting diodes (LEDs) for solid-state lighting applications, but the slump was offset by a 16% increase in revenues for sensors and actuators along with a modest 4% rise in discretes, according to IC Insights’ new 2017 O-S-D Report—A Market Analysis and Forecast for Optoelectronics, Sensors/Actuators, and Discretes.

The new 360-page report shows O-S-D products generated 19% of total semiconductor sales in 2016, with the rest of the dollar volume coming in integrated circuits ($297.7 billion, which was a 4% increase from 2015).  IC Insights believes optoelectronics, sensors/actuators, and discretes sales will stabilize in 2017 and gradually return to more normal growth rates in the 2016-2021 forecast period of the new O-S-D Report (Figure 1).

Figure 1

Figure 1

Slight improvements in the weak global economy, steady increases in electronics production, and new end-use applications—such as wearable systems, billions of connections to the Internet of Things (IoT), the spread of image recognition in all types of equipment, and the proliferation of LED lighting around the world—are forecast to lift the three O-S-D markets in the next five years to $92.2 billion, which is a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.3% from 2016 compared to a projected CAGR of 5.7% for ICs.  The newly released 2017 O-S-D Report offers detailed market forecasts of the optoelectronics, sensor/actuator, and discretes market segments through 2021. A summary of how the three O-S-D market segments performed in 2016 and their outlooks for 2017 are shown below.

Optoelectronics sales fell 3.6% in 2016 to $33.9 billion, suffering their first setback in eight years. Sales of lamp devices, the largest optoelectronics product category, declined 8%.  Meanwhile, an oversupply of high-brightness LEDs for solid-state lighting applications also dragged the market down. The downturn is expected to be short lived as image sensors, especially those made with CMOS technology, are in the midst of a major new wave of growth, driven by new embedded cameras and digital imaging applications in automotive, medical, machine vision, security, wearable systems, and user-recognition interfaces.  Laser transmitters are also hitting new record-high sales because of the build-out of high-speed optical networks for huge increases in Internet traffic, digital video transmissions, cloud-computing services, and billions of new IoT connections in the coming years. Total optoelectronics sales are expected to grow 7.5% in 2017 to reach a new record high of $36.5 billion.

Sensors/Actuators, the smallest and until recently the fastest-increasing semiconductor market, ended four straight years of severe price erosion in 2016 and finally benefitted from strong unit growth. Sensors/actuator sales climbed 15.9% to a record-high $11.9 billion.  All major sensor product categories (pressure, acceleration/yaw, and magnetic sensors) and the large actuator segment saw double-digit sales growth in 2016.  The sensors/actuators market is projected to rise 7.8% in 2017 to reach a new record-high level of $12.8 billion.  In the next five years, sensors/actuators sales are forecast to be driven by the spread of automated embedded-control functions in vehicles (including autonomous driving capabilities), flying drones, industrial and robotic systems, home electronics, and measurement units being tied to IoT.

Discretes, the semiconductor industry’s oldest market, returned to normal growth in 2016 with sales increasing 4.2% to $22.1 billion.  In the last seven years, worldwide discretes sales have swung back and forth between strong increases and declines because systems manufacturers tend to abruptly cancel purchases whenever the economy and end-use product markets appears to be slowing, but then quickly resume buying to replenish factory inventories once the outlook improves.  With inventories being replenished in much of 2016, growth returned to five out of the six discretes product categories—power transistors, small-signal transistors, diodes, rectifiers, and miscellaneous “other” discretes group. The only sales drop in discretes was recorded by thyristors.  Total discretes revenues are forecast to rise 4.7% in 2017 to a new record-high $23.1 billion.

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), representing U.S. leadership in semiconductor manufacturing, design, and research, today announced worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $30.4 billion for the month of February 2017, an increase of 16.5 percent compared to the February 2016 total of $26.1 billion. Global sales in February were 0.8 percent lower than the January 2017 total of $30.6 billion, exceeding normal seasonal market performance. February marked the global market’s largest year-to-year growth since October 2010. All monthly sales numbers are compiled by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization and represent a three-month moving average.

“The global semiconductor industry has posted strong sales early in 2017, with memory products like DRAM and NAND flash leading the way,” said John Neuffer, president and CEO, Semiconductor Industry Association. “Year-to-year sales increased by double digits across most regional markets, with the China and Americas markets showing particularly strong growth. Global market trends are favorable for continuing sales growth in the months ahead.”

Year-to-year sales increased across all regions: China (25.0 percent), the Americas (19.1 percent), Japan (11.9 percent), Asia Pacific/All Other (11.2 percent), and Europe (5.9 percent). Month-to-month sales increased modestly in Asia Pacific/All Other (0.5 percent) but decreased slightly across all others: Europe (-0.6 percent), Japan (-0.9 percent), China (-1.0 percent), and the Americas (-2.3 percent).

Neuffer also noted the recent growth of foreign semiconductor markets is a reminder of the importance of expanding U.S. semiconductor companies’ access to global markets, which is one of SIA’s policy priorities for 2017. The U.S. industry accounts for nearly half of the world’s total semiconductor sales, and more than 80 percent of U.S. semiconductor company sales are to overseas markets, helping make semiconductors one of America’s top exports.

February 2017

Billions

Month-to-Month Sales                               

Market

Last Month

Current Month

% Change

Americas

6.13

5.99

-2.3%

Europe

2.84

2.82

-0.6%

Japan

2.79

2.77

-0.9%

China

10.15

10.05

-1.0%

Asia Pacific/All Other

8.72

8.76

0.5%

Total

30.64

30.39

-0.8%

Year-to-Year Sales                          

Market

Last Year

Current Month

% Change

Americas

5.03

5.99

19.1%

Europe

2.66

2.82

5.9%

Japan

2.47

2.77

11.9%

China

8.04

10.05

25.0%

Asia Pacific/All Other

7.88

8.76

11.2%

Total

26.08

30.39

16.5%

Three-Month-Moving Average Sales

Market

Sept/Oct/Nov

Dec/Jan/Feb

% Change

Americas

6.25

5.99

-4.2%

Europe

2.88

2.82

-2.3%

Japan

2.90

2.77

-4.6%

China

10.04

10.05

0.1%

Asia Pacific/All Other

8.94

8.76

-2.0%

Total

31.02

30.39

-2.0%

 

SEMI, the global industry association representing the electronics manufacturing supply chain, today announced that the global semiconductor materials market increased 2.4 percent in 2016 compared to 2015 while worldwide semiconductor revenues increased 1.1 percent.

According to the SEMI Material Market Data Subscription, total wafer fabrication materials and packaging materials were $24.7 billion and $19.6 billion, respectively. Comparable revenues for these segments in 2015 were $24.0 billion for wafer fabrication materials and $19.3 billion for packaging materials. The wafer fabrication materials segment increased 3.1 percent year-over-year, while the packaging materials segment increased 1.4 percent.

For the seventh consecutive year, Taiwan was the largest consumer of semiconductor materials due to its large foundry and advanced packaging base, totaling $9.8 billion. Korea and Japan maintained the second and third places, respectively, while China rose in the rankings to claim the fourth spot during the same time. Annual revenue growth was the strongest in the China, Taiwan, and Japan markets. The materials market in Europe, Rest of World (ROW) and South Korea experienced nominal growth, while the materials market in North America contracted. (The ROW region is defined as Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, other areas of Southeast Asia and smaller global markets.)

2015 and 2016 Regional Semiconductor Materials Markets (US$ Billions)

Region 2015* 2016 % Change
Taiwan

9.42

9.79

3.9%
South Korea

7.09

7.11

0.2%
Japan

6.56

6.74

2.8%
China

6.08

6.53

7.3%
Rest of World

6.09

6.12

0.6%
North America

4.97

4.90

-1.4%
Europe

3.07

3.12

1.5%
Total

43.29

44.32

2.4%

Source: SEMI, April 2017 Note: Figures may not add due to rounding.
* 2015 data have been updated based on SEMI’s data collection programs

IEEE, the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for humanity, this week announced the next milestone phase in the development of the International Roadmap for Devices and Systems (IRDS)—an IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) Industry Connections (IC) Program sponsored by the IEEE Rebooting Computing (IEEE RC) Initiative—with the launch of a series of nine white papers that reinforce the initiative’s core mission and vision for the future of the computing industry. The white papers also identify industry challenges and solutions that guide and support future roadmaps created by IRDS.

IEEE is taking a lead role in building a comprehensive, end-to-end view of the computing ecosystem, including devices, components, systems, architecture, and software. In May 2016, IEEE announced the formation of the IRDS under the sponsorship of IEEE RC. The historical integration of IEEE RC and the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) 2.0 addresses mapping the ecosystem of the new reborn electronics industry. The new beginning of the evolved roadmap—with the migration from ITRS to IRDS—is proceeding seamlessly as all the reports produced by the ITRS 2.0 represent the starting point of IRDS.

While engaging other segments of IEEE in complementary activities to assure alignment and consensus across a range of stakeholders, the IRDS team is developing a 15-year roadmap with a vision to identify key trends related to devices, systems, and other related technologies.

“Representing the foundational development stage in IRDS is the publishing of nine white papers that outline the vital and technical components required to create a roadmap,” said Paolo A. Gargini, IEEE Fellow and Chairman of IRDS. “As a team, we are laying the foundation to identify challenges and recommendations on possible solutions to the industry’s current limitations defined by Moore’s Law. With the launch of the nine white papers on our new website, the IRDS roadmap sets the path for the industry benefiting from all fresh levels of processing power, energy efficiency, and technologies yet to be discovered.”

“The IRDS has taken a significant step in creating the industry roadmap by publishing nine technical white papers,” said IEEE Fellow Elie Track, 2011-2014 President, IEEE Council on Superconductivity; Co-chair, IEEE RC; and CEO of nVizix. “Through the public availability of these white papers, we’re inviting computing professionals to participate in creating an innovative ecosystem that will set a new direction for the greater good of the industry. Today, I open an invitation to get involved with IEEE RC and the IRDS.”

The series of white papers delivers the starting framework of the IRDS roadmap—and through the sponsorship of IEEE RC—will inform the various roadmap teams in the broader task of mapping the devices’ and systems’ ecosystem:

“IEEE is the perfect place to foster the IRDS roadmap and fulfill what the computing industry has been searching for over the past decades,” said IEEE Fellow Thomas M. Conte, 2015 President, IEEE Computer Society; Co-chair, IEEE RC; and Professor, Schools of Computer Science, and Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology. “In essence, we’re creating a new Moore’s Law. And we have so many next-generation computing solutions that could easily help us reach uncharted performance heights, including cryogenic computing, reversible computing, quantum computing, neuromorphic computing, superconducting computing, and others. And that’s why the IEEE RC Initiative exists: creating and maintaining a forum for the experts who will usher the industry beyond the Moore’s Law we know today.”

The IRDS leadership team hosted a winter workshop and kick-off meeting at the Georgia Institute of Technology on 1-2 December 2016. Key discoveries from the workshop included the international focus teams’ plans and focus topics for the 2017 roadmap, top-level needs and challenges, and linkages among the teams. Additionally, the IRDS leadership invited presentations from the European and Japanese roadmap initiatives. This resulted in the 2017 IRDS global membership expanding to include team members from the “NanoElectronics Roadmap for Europe: Identification and Dissemination” (NEREID) sponsored by the European Semiconductor Industry Association (ESIA), and the “Systems and Design Roadmap of Japan” (SDRJ) sponsored by the Japan Society of Applied Physics (JSAP).

The IRDS team and its supporters will convene 1-3 April 2017 in Monterey, California, for the Spring IRDS Workshop, which is part of the 2017 IEEE International Reliability Physics Symposium (IRPS). The team will meet again for the Fall IRDS Conference—in partnership with the 2017 IEEE International Conference on Rebooting Computing (ICRC)—scheduled for 6-7 November 2017 in Washington, D.C. More information on both events can be found here: http://irds.ieee.org/events.

IEEE RC is a program of IEEE Future Directions, designed to develop and share educational tools, events, and content for emerging technologies.

IEEE-SA’s IC Program helps incubate new standards and related products and services, by facilitating collaboration among organizations and individuals as they hone and refine their thinking on rapidly changing technologies.

Technavio market research analysts forecast the global MRAM market to grow at a CAGR of close to 94% during the forecast period, according to their latest report.

The market study covers the present scenario and growth prospects of the global MRAM market for 2017-2021. The report also lists STT-MRAM and Toggle MRAM as the two major product segments, of which STT-MRAM accounted for more than 63% of the market share in 2016. STT-MRAM devices are more efficient, faster, and easier to scale down as compared to toggle MRAM devices.

“MRAM is a type of nonvolatile memory that utilizes magnetic charges for storing data instead of electric charges as in the case of DRAM and SRAM technologies. MRAM offers the added advantage of higher density in terms of writing and reading speed. In addition, MRAM retains the data even when turned off and consumes less amount of electricity, unlike DRAM and SRAM,” says Navin Rajendra, an industry expert for embedded systems research at Technavio.

Technavio’s sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report including the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more.

Technavio hardware and semiconductor analysts highlight the following three market drivers that are contributing to the growth of the global MRAM market:

  • Increasing demand for data centers
  • Growing Internet of things (IoT) and big data operations
  • Enterprise adoption of cloud-based storage

Increasing demand for data centers

High amount of system memory has become crucial for the proper functioning of new types of enterprise and data center applications. DRAM cannot provide the required capacity and low energy required for these data centers. MRAM has advanced features like low-power consumption and higher memory capacity than DRAM. Thus, MRAM is expected to replace DRAM in data centers and enterprise storages during the forecast period.

The demand for data centers among CSPs, government agencies, and telecommunications organizations is growing. Thus, with an increase in the demand for data centers globally, the manufacturers will invest in new technologies that will be equipped with MRAMs, which will drive the global MRAM market.

Growing Internet of things (IoT) and big data operations

There will be around 30 billion Internet-connected devices worldwide by 2020, which will be a major revenue generator for data center storage market as growing connected devices will lead to the generation of high volumes of data. Terms such as a connected car, connected home, connected health, and smart cities are gaining popularity. Many industries such as manufacturing, utilities, retail, automotive, and social media use IoT.

IoT devices demand an energy-efficient network of smart nodes that need to be always powered on, always connected, and always aware, with low active duty cycles. The present IoT devices rely on both nonvolatile storage and volatile working memory simultaneously.

“Manufacturers have introduced a unified memory subsystem that is built on embedded STT-MRAM. This system offers faster processing and is cost and energy efficient as compared to the older technologies,” says Navin.

Enterprise adoption of cloud-based storage

Storing data on the cloud is proving to be an effective medium for enterprises worldwide. Many enterprises started moving their data to the cloud (storage-as-a-service) by selecting service providers such as Amazon Web Service, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. DRAM has been used in cloud computing applications. However, MRAM has better features like fast read-write and low error rate compared with DRAM, and thus, it is expected that DRAM will soon be replaced by MRAM in the future.

IC Insights has raised its worldwide IC market growth forecast for 2017 to 11%—more than twice its original 5% outlook—based on data shown in the March Update to the 20th anniversary 2017 edition of The McClean Report. The revision was necessary due to a substantial upgrade to the 2017 growth rates forecast for the DRAM and NAND flash memory markets.

IC Insights currently expects DRAM sales to grow 39% and NAND flash sales to increase 25% this year, with upside potential from those forecasts.  DRAM market growth is expected to be driven almost entirely by a huge 37% increase in the DRAM average selling price (ASP), as compared to 2016, when the DRAM ASP dropped by 12%. Moreover, NAND flash ASPs are forecast to rebound and jump 22% this year after falling by 1% last year.

The DRAM market started 2017 the way it ended 2016—with strong gains in DRAM ASP.  In April 2016, the DRAM ASP was $2.41 but rapidly increased to $3.60 in January 2017, a 49% jump.  A pickup in DRAM demand from PC suppliers during the second half of 2016 caused a significant spike in the ASP of PC DRAM.  Currently, strengthening ASPs are also evident in the mobile DRAM market segment.

With total DRAM bit volume demand expected to increase by 30% this year and DRAM bit volume production capacity forecast to increase by 20%, IC Insights believes that quarterly DRAM ASPs could still surprise on the upside in 2017. Furthermore, DRAM output is also being slowed, at least temporarily, by the ongoing transition of DRAM production to ≤20nm feature sizes by the major DRAM producers this year.

At $57.3 billion, the DRAM market is forecast to be by far the largest IC product category in 2017, exceeding the expected MPU market for standard PCs and servers ($47.1 billion) by $10.2 billion this year.  Figure 1 shows that the DRAM market has been both a significant tailwind (i.e., positive influence) and headwind (i.e., negative influence) on total worldwide IC market growth in three out of the past four years.

Figure 1

Figure 1

Spurred by a 12% decline in the DRAM ASP in 2016, the DRAM market slumped 8% last year.  The DRAM segment became a headwind to worldwide IC market growth in 2016 instead of the tailwind it had been in 2013 and 2014. As shown, the DRAM market shaved two percentage points off of total IC industry growth last year.  In contrast, the DRAM segment is forecast to have a positive impact of four percentage points on total IC market growth this year. It is interesting to note that the total IC market growth rate forecast for 2017, when excluding the DRAM and NAND flash markets, would be only 4%, about one-third of the current worldwide IC market growth rate forecast including these memory devices.

The March Update to the 2017 edition of The McClean Report further describes IC Insights’ IC market forecast revision, updates its 2017-2021 semiconductor capital spending forecast, and shows the final 2016 top 10 OSAT company ranking.

Soitec and Silicon Genesis Corporation (SiGen) have successfully brought an end to the dispute regarding the importation and sale in the United States of certain silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers. Both companies have agreed to dismiss all pending litigations including the proceedings in front of the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC).

This agreement reinforces Soitec’s intellectual property position and allows the company to better serve and protect Soitec’s customers and business partners.

A robust patent portfolio is a key part of Soitec’s business model, including new product developments, manufacturing and licensing. The company uses its technologies to enhance the performance and energy efficiency of semiconductors. Soitec’s products – mainly SOI wafers – are critical for today’s global electronics chip industry, with SOI based chips being mainly used in smart phones, cars, IOT devices and networks.

As demand for the flexible AMOLED display continues to sharply increase, its revenues are expected to reach $3.2 billion in the third quarter of 2017, exceeding that of rigid AMOLED panels at $3.0 billion, according to IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO).

With many smartphone brands planning to apply flexible AMOLED displays to their high-end product lines, revenues for flexible AMOLED panels are expected to grow over 150 percent compared to 2016. On the other hand, rigid AMOLED panels, now mainly used for mid-range smartphones, are forecast to decline 2 percent in revenues from 2016.

“Smartphone brands believe using flexible AMOLED panels in their latest high-end products will differentiate themselves from competitors still using rigid AMOLED displays or liquid crystal displays,” said Jerry Kang, principal analyst of display research at IHS Markit.

“Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics have launched some of their flagship smartphones with flexible AMOLED displays since 2013, but have yet to become mainstream products given there was limited panel supply,” Kang said. “Since 2016, however, many more panel makers have focused their efforts on increasing their supply capacity for flexible AMOLED displays. They have also tried to optimize the manufacturing process and design better structure of these panels, making flexible AMOLED display a favored choice for smartphones makers.”

amoled shipments

According to AMOLED & Flexible Display Intelligence Service by IHS Markit, most smartphone makers are aiming to apply flexible AMOLED displays to their products in 2017, but some of them would still find it difficult due to the higher price tag.

“Currently, the cost to make flexible AMOLED panels is much higher than that of rigid AMOLED, but it is possible that costs will fall below that of rigid panels in the future as manufacturing yield rates improve,” Kang said.