More than Moore’s overall Wafer demand is driven by Megatrends

MtM wafer demand reached almost 45 million 8-inch eq wafers in 2017. The wafer demand is expected to reach more than 66 million 8-inch eq. wafers by 2023, with an almost 10% CAGR between 2017 and 2023. According to Yole Développement (Yole)’s definition, the MtM applications include MEMS & sensors, CIS , and power, along with RF devices.

Driven by the increasing deployment of renewable energy sources , and industrial motor drives, as well as the growing EV/HEVs industry, power devices’ wafer market size will grow at an almost 13% CAGR from 2017 to 2023. In 2017, it accounted for more than 60% of overall MtM wafer starts. According to Yole’s analysts, it will continue dominating the MtM industry.

In parallel, 5G, a hot topic today, will likely be a huge part of the MtM evolution, bringing any service to any user anywhere, but also requiring new antennas, along with filtering functionality. These stringent requirements will lead to increasing demand for RF components like RF filters, PAs , and LNAs to ensure access to tomorrow’s radio network.
Meanwhile, the demand for advanced mobile applications that integrate more functionalities will require aggregating more and more devices such as fingerprint sensors, ambient light sensors, 3D sensing, microphones, and inertial MEMS devices. This will, in the near future, contribute to strong wafer growth in the MEMS & sensors wafer market. Additionally, smart automobiles have reached a new level of complexity requiring the development and integration of new sensors. As such, Yole expects smart automobiles to drive consistent growth of CIS and sensor wafer production over the next five years, fueled by the expanding integration of high-value sensing modules like radar, imaging, and LiDAR. Although automotive will be mainly supported by these growth areas, classical MEMS & sensors such as MEMS pressure sensors and inertial MEMS will still continue growing at a reasonable rate, supporting the standard automotive world.

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“Yole’s analysts are part of the powerful semiconductor community”, explains Emilie Jolivet, Director, Semiconductor and Software at Yole. “Their daily interactions with leading companies allow them to collect a large amount of relevant data and cross their vision of market segments’ evolution and technology breakthroughs. Wafer Starts for More Than Moore Applications report is the first opportunity to get an overview of the MtM industry based on a 20-year expertise.”

“Numerous megatrend market drivers will contribute to MtM devices’ growth”, confirms Amandine Pizzagalli, Technology & Market Analyst, Semiconductor Manufacturing at Yole. “The megatrends are covering the following market segments: 5G including wireless infrastructure & mobile, mobile with additional functionalities, voice processing, smart automotive, AR/VR and AI.”

For the first time, the market research and strategy consulting company Yole announces a global technology & market analysis dedicated to the MtM industry. The Wafer Starts for More Than Moore Applications report is the first part of a valuable series that will be released all year long.