GaAs and SiGe IC market to grow at 22% annually
The IC Insight data indicates that the compound semiconductor IC market peaked at $2.42 billion in 2000, but fell to $1.69 billion in 2002. The company forecasts strong growth in 2003, when the market will reach $1.96 billion, and continual expansion through 2007, when the market will have more than doubled to $4.65 billion.
Compound semiconductor ICs are still largely based on GaAs, which accounted for 87 percent of the market in 2002. However, IC Insights’ recently-released McClean Report 2003 study shows that SiGe is expected to display the strongest growth in demand in the coming years, achieving a marketshare of 33 percent by 2007.
The main advantages of SiGe are due to its compatibility with conventional silicon CMOS processes. That means SiGe chips can benefit from the economies-of-scale that today’s high-volume 200 mm (and soon 300 mm) silicon wafer fabs can provide, thereby lowering per-die costs.
A second, and perhaps more compelling, reason SiGe is an attractive technology option is the ability to merge the advantages of CMOS technology in low-power, high-density digital circuitry with the high speed of the SiGe HBTs. This can lead to the creation of advanced BiCMOS processes ideally suited for highly integrated mixed-signal ICs for communications applications.
