Growth of China's IC industry slows with growth rate of 9.7 percent in 2011

BEIJING, CHINA: According to CCID Consulting, the global semiconductor market lacked momentum in 2011. By the end of 2011, the global semiconductor market was valued at $300.94 billion, with a slight growth of 0.88 percent year-on-year.

In 2011, the world's semiconductor product structure experienced the following slight changes: market shares of sensors and discrete devices kept rising, with a growth rate of 17.43 percent and 10.94 percent, respectively; however, IC experienced a slight shrink, mainly due to the price falls.

Affected by different factors at home and abroad, the sales revenue of China's IC market slightly grew by 9.7 percent, which still outplayed the global market.

In terms of product structure, the market share of memory reached 21.3 percent in 2011, almost 3 percent down from 2010, The loss was attributable to the following two reasons. First, the mainstream PC DRAM products suffered a 50 percent fall in their prices in 2011.

Second, the bankruptcy of Japan's Elpida caused a new round of integration and merger and further enhanced the giant players’ monopoly power in the memory market. In contrast to the DRAM products, the NAND Flash products, driven by the popularization of smart phone, Pad and MID, witnessed a soaring growth in their sales volume.

Under such circumstances, the memory market decreased by 3.1 percent in 2011 year-on-year. Besides, the market share of ASSPs increased, while CPU’s output experienced a fast growth, owing largely to the rapid increase in China's laptop output in 2011.

In terms of application structure of China’s IC market, computer, telecom and consumer electronics remained the dominant application fields in 2011, with a combined market share of 87.5 percent. The computer-related IC market continued to see a stable growth in 2011, with an annual growth rate of 9.2 percent. Meanwhile, IC card overtook automotive electronics to become the fastest-growing application field in 2011.

As for brands, Intel was still the top brand in China's IC market. Hynix Semiconductor, stuck to the third place, experienced a 12 percent decrease in its market size growth due to the price falls of memory products. Renesas, whose MCU production for automotive electronics was affected by the East Japan earthquake, saw a 2.8 percent decrease in its growth rate. Qualcomm was ranked among the top ten in China's IC market with a growth rate of over 30 percent, thanks to the rising popularity of its mobile terminal products.

Development trends of China's IC market
In the future, China's IC market is expected to maintain a grow rate of 9 percent, mainly driven by the development of electronic products like PC, mobile phone and LCD TV. In addition, the development of emerging sectors such as Internet of things, cloud computing, new energy, semiconductor lighting, medical electronics and security electronics will provide new momentum for China's IC market.

In terms of technology, the 22nm chip is supposed to begin commercial sale next year, while the R&D of 14nm chips has already commenced. The processors will largely adopt the multi-core architecture, and new 22nm processor products will emerge. The memory products will also see smaller dimensions and more advanced packaging.