According to the latest report from IC insights, annual shipments of semiconductors including integrated circuits and optoelectronics, sensors, and discrete semiconductors (O-S-D) are expected to increase by 7% in 2020.
The report shows that total semiconductor shipments will increase by 7% to 1,036.3 billion units in 2020, which will be the second time ever that total semiconductor shipments exceed one trillion units. The record high was 1,046 billion in 2018.
According to the figure above, the semiconductor industry fluctuates cyclically. In 2007, semiconductor shipments exceeded 600 billion units. Later, due to the global financial crisis, semiconductor shipments fell sharply in 2008 and 2009. By 2010, unit shipments rebounded sharply, with an increase of up to 25%, and by 2018, it has exceeded 1 trillion.
From 1978 to 2020, the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of these 42-year semiconductor shipments is expected to be 8.6%.
IC insights said that by 2020, the gap between IC and O-S-D devices in total shipments is expected to be greater than 2: 1, and OSD devices will account for the majority, which is expected to account for 69% of total semiconductor shipments, compared to 31% for ICs.
In addition, IC insights predicts that by 2020, the category with the highest unit growth rate will be semiconductors used in smartphones and automotive electronic systems, while semiconductors used in computer systems for artificial intelligence, cloud and big data, as well as deep learning applications, are also essential.
