3rd Party Semiconductor Intellectual Property Market: Resumption of Growth

2008 was forecast to be a good growth year, until external events in worldwide financial markets overtook the SIP market. The SIP industry was not immune to the market forces unleashed in 2008, declining 21.9% in 2009. However, the recovery which arrived in the second half of 2009 prevented the 3rd Party SIP from declining at an even steeper rate. It is Semico’s view that the SIP market will continue to perform at rates comparable to other semiconductor markets, with 17.1% growth in 2010. This is due to the trend for more and more SIP to be instantiated into SoCs and other device types that use SIP. Semico believes that semiconductor unit shipments will be strongly positive in 2010 and into 2011. As long as end demand remains reasonable, the 3rd Party SIP market will continue to grow.

Much of semiconductor demand today is associated with consumer devices and consumer purchasing power which was adversely affected by the downturn in the world economy. Historically, the industry innovates its way out of a downturn. Semico’s assumption is that successful companies will roll out new products to stimulate the market, meaning new designs and more use of SIP to accomplish those designs. Semico does not see any negative growth for the SIP market over the entire forecast period; 2010 - 2015.

The rise of new applications such as MP3 players, Digital Cameras, Cell Phones, Netbooks, PC Tablets and other portable consumer devices has been one of the major drivers of the SIP market. Another driver has been the Communications segment with the build-out of infrastructure for the Internet, both Wired and Wireless.

The Communications segment will be the largest SIP category over the forecast period. The Computer segment will slip to 3rd-place status behind the Consumer segment, which will take a larger share of SIP and emerge as the second-largest application segment for SIP by 2015.

The SIP market is undergoing a round of consolidation with the number of companies shrinking approximately 50% by 2010 compared to 2000. However, this is not a sign of a weakening market, but rather of the market sorting itself out with strong contenders consolidating their positions. Semico projects this market to continue to grow, exhibiting a CAGR of 12.6% from 2010 – 2015.

These changes and many more are outlined in a new report from Semico Research Corp. entitled: 3rd Party Semiconductor Intellectual Property: Resumption of Growth, SC103-10, September 2010.

This report looks at changes and trends in the 3rd Party SIP market concentrated in the Computer, Consumer, Communications, Transportation and Industrial market categories. Using 2009 as a base year, and forecasting out through 2015, the report tracks the traditional Star and Commodity SIP products by revenue. It also details SIP used in the profiled silicon devices such as Advanced Performance Multicore SoC, Value Multicore SoC, Basic SoC, Platform SoC, Programmable SoC, FPGAs, Structured ASICs and ASSPs.

Some of the data discussed in 109 pages with 31 tables and 51 graphs are:

• Total Hard, Firm and Soft Commodity SIP forecast by application
• Total Hard, Firm and Soft Star SIP forecast by application
• Worldwide SIP market forecast by device type
• Growth in the number of SIP blocks by design
• Worldwide forecast for SIP revenues by region
• Worldwide forecast for SIP revenues by SIP type: Analog, Memory, CPU cores, DSP cores, Interface, Logic, Chip Enhancement and Interconnect
• In depth discussion of the history, evolutionary forces and trends that drive the SIP industry today and that will drive it in the near future
• In depth discussion of current SIP market licensing business practices
• In depth discussion of efforts under way by various industry organizations to standardize different aspects of SIP usage and design

This detailed report by Semico Research Corp. is a true ‘must-have’ for those wanting to understand where the SIP market is today and how it will evolve over the near term, giving readers a sense of the forces at work that underlie this critical part of the SoC design landscape.