News Article
Compound semiconductor industry revenues drop, but not for long
The need for increasing bandwidth for mobile handsets will continue to power revenue growth in the compound semiconductor industry in the future
Compound semiconductor manufacturers Skyworks, RFMD and Freescale experienced revenue declines at the end of 2011.
However, bandwidth consumption and mobile handset sales are still increasing.
The Strategy Analytics GaAs and Compound Semiconductor Technologies Service (GaAs) viewpoint, "Compound Semiconductor Industry Review January 2012: Microelectronics," captures product, technology, contract and financial announcements for these companies, as well as others such as Fujitsu, Anadigics, Agilent, Hittite Microwave, TriQuint Semiconductor, Avago, Soitec, Analog Devices and Microsemi.
"Even though we are seeing revenue growth rates slow from some of the larger compound semiconductor manufacturers, this should not set off too many warning bells", notes Eric Higham, Director of the Strategy Analytics GaAs and Compound Semiconductor Technologies Service. "The need for bandwidth, especially due to ever-increasing sales of mobile handsets, will continue to power revenue growth in the compound semiconductor industry."
Asif Anwar, Director, Strategy Analytics Strategic Technologies Practice adds, "Revenue is typically the highest in the third quarter, as manufacturers increase production in advance of the holiday season. Despite the declines at the end of the year, Strategy Analytics expects 2012 revenue growth for the industry to be close to the historical average of 6 percent."
The Strategy Analytics report reviews a variety of commercial and military applications that use GaAs, GaN, SiC, SiGe and complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technologies. It summarises financial, product, contract and employment developments from leading compound semiconductor device suppliers from January 2012.
