Analog ICs are critical to nearly all electronic devices. The global electronics market will consume over 127.5 billion analog ICs in 2016, which translates to several analog ICs per electronic device. Analog ICs experienced stronger than average growth over the last several years as the mobility products grew at double digit rates. These products have a higher than average analog content thus growth has exceeded the overall market. Now this appears to be changing as end applications like smartphones and tablets are growing at a slower rate as these markets saturate and replacements become the growth driver. A new market research report from Semico Research, Analog Market Update: Making Digital Systems Come Alive, forecasts the analog market to grow by $8 Billion by 2020.
"The Internet of Things presents a great growth potential for analog and sensors, but large volumes are still a few years away," said Jim Feldhan, president of Semico Research. "Consequently, we are seeing an inflection point in the analog market. Over the next 5 years, analog sales growth will slow to a CAGR of 4.3% in dollar terms and 7.9% in unit terms."
Some of the report's key findings include:
- Asia Pacific, including China, now represents 58% of total analog sales.
- First quarter 2016 unit shipments were 19.8 billion.
- Power Management units will reach 63.6 billion by 2020.
- General purpose analog chips are mainly made on older process technologies and account for 40.6% of total analog revenues.