ASIC Design Starts 2017: Consumer and Industrial Lead the Way

Many of the traditional end-use applications are experiencing slower semiconductor unit growth rates due to market saturation and reduced demand.  In addition, growth rates are more moderate when the sheer volumes of a market reach levels that make it difficult to continue experiencing double-digit growth rates.  While there are new applications such as those associated with the IoT (Internet of Things) and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) which are expected to follow a higher growth curve over the next few years, in general, growth rates for traditional markets such as PCs and cellphones are expected to moderate.  A new Semico Research report, ASIC Design Starts 2017: Consumer and Industrial Lead the Way, predicts that worldwide ASIC unit market shipments for the categories in the study are going to show a 10.1% CAGR from 2016 – 2021.

"In terms of unit growth rates over the forecast period, the Communications segment is now third behind Industrial and Consumer. When measured in terms of unit volumes, the Communications segment is the overwhelming leader out of all the end-use categories tracked in this report," according to Rich Wawrzyniak, Senior Analyst ASIC/SoC Research.  "The demand for rich feature sets and large data files drives the 'connectivity revolution' with ever-larger requirements for bandwidth increases. In turn, this helps to drive Communication units, but the growth rate for communications ranks third over the forecast period. The growth rate leaders in terms of units have become the Industrial (IIoT) and Consumer (wearables/health and IoT) segments. and the following new applications are having a disproportionate impact on the total design start landscape: Smart Grid, Internet of Things (IoT), Wearables, Smart Watches, Fitness, Solid State Drives, Drones and Controllers, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Artificial Intelligence Voice Activated Devices, Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), and 5G Infrastructure."

New research findings include:

• The Basic SoC product segment is growing at the fastest rate of any of the profiled product types with a CAGR of 9.0% from 2016 – 2021.
• Asia/Pacific will see the largest growth at 9.3% CAGR over the forecast period.
• PLD unit volumes are forecast to increase 3.6% in 2017.
• FPGA unit shipments are projected to show a 14.4% CAGR through 2021. 

The new report, ASIC Design Starts 2017: Consumer and Industrial Lead the Way, SC107-17, contains comprehensive data regarding the current and future ASIC design starts landscape.  The report is 93 pages long, with 62 tables and 66 charts covering the following key metrics:
 
End market applications:
              *Computer and Peripheral
              *Communications
              *Consumer
              *Industrial
              *Automotive
 
ASIC product types analyzed by design starts with unit shipments for:
              *Mixed Signal
              *3 SoC types
              *FPGAs and PLDs

• Design Starts for the 9 ASIC Product types by

              *Process Geometry
              *Region
              *Design Complexity

• Two years of history (2015 -2016) and a 5-year forecast (2017 – 2021)