According to the latest report from IC Insights, shortages, tight supplies and rising prices have boosted sales of most optoelectronics, sensors and actuators, and discrete semiconductors (O-S-D) products, but sales of CMOS image sensors have been held back by trade frictions and technology disputes between the U.S. and China
The report pointed out that the total O-S-D revenue in 2021 exceeded US$100 billion for the first time, reaching a record level, an increase of 18% to $104.2 billion compared with $88.3 billion in 2020.
IC Insights stated that O-S-D sales—which accounted for 17% of the world’s $613.9 billion total semiconductor market in 2021 (the rest being ICs)—were primarily driven last year by sharp increases in unit demand for widely used discrete devices, tight supplies of sensors and actuators, higher average selling prices (ASPs), long lead times for deliveries, and delays in restocking factory inventories by system makers, according to the January Flash Report of IC Insights’ 2022 McClean Report service. Fueled by purchases of power transistors, diodes, and many commodity devices, total discrete semiconductor sales surged 27% in 2021—more than 5x the annual average growth rate in the last three decades—to $35.2 billion. Meanwhile, revenues climbed 26% in 2021 for sensors (including pressure and microphone chips, accelerometers and gyroscope devices, magnetic-field sensors and compasses, and temperature sensors), and actuators sales jumped by 31% last year. The total sensor/actuator market grew 28% in 2021 to a record-high $21.1 billion, according to data in the recently released report.
Optoelectronics sales growth was muted in the 2021 rebound due to the lack of a surge in CMOS image sensors, which were held back by trade frictions and technology disputes between the U.S. and China, fluctuations in some key end-use applications, and shortages of ICs and other components used in digitalimaging systems. Optoelectronics sales increased 9% in 2021 to a record-high $47.9 billion, and the large CMOS image sensor category only grew 6% to $20.3 billion last year, says the IC Insights report.
IC Insights now forecasts that total O-S-D sales will increase 11% in 2022 to $115.5 billion with optoelectronics rising 13% to $54.2 billion, sensors/actuators expanding 15% to $24.3 billion, and the discretes segment easing back to more normal growth of 5% to $37.1 billion this year.
