In 2011, sapphire will exceed 50 percent of CS processed surface

LYON, FRANCE: Yole Développement released its new markets and technological study dedicated to compound semiconductor substrates. In this report, the company announces that sapphire will exceed 50 percent of the compound semiconductor substrates processed surface.

Yole Développement analyses the CS materials market, the projection in 2013 and beyond. The report describes the current developments and new innovations. For each material, GaAs, GaP, GaN, SiC, InP and Sapphire, it provides the main targeted devices and related market size.Source: Yole Développement, France.

Yole’s analysts list the main material suppliers (merchant and captive) with product description and market shares. They also analyze the main material users, the related products. The report presents the substrate market value and volume ($, units, Msq.in.), split by diameter and electrical specs
(Semi-conductive, semi-insulating) in the 2008-2013 time frame.

In 2011, sapphire will exceed 50 percent of CS processed surface
Silicon largely dominates the semiconductor business as the reference material. However, specific applications such as optoelectronics, RF or power electronics require material properties that cannot be offered by silicon.

GaAs, GaN, GaP, GaAs, InP, SiC and Sapphire substrates now account for 1.1 percent of the 7,504 million square inches annually processed in semiconductor foundries. However, that small portion of processed area is compensated by a higher merchant price leading to a $880M raw substrate market size in 2009 and reaching the billion dollar threshold in 2010.

Up to now, GaAs was the leading material in volume thanks to the wireless technology and red/orange/yellow LED demand, but sapphire will take the lead from 2011 driven by the booming business in white LED for LCD backlight and general illumination.

These materials have been protected from silicon competition because they allow device performance not reachable by THE semiconductor material (Frequency, power, thermal conductivity, robustness, junction temperature, voltage breakdown…). Even though compound materials have market prices dramatically higher than Si, Technical Specs have been, and will remain, the main driver for the adoption of these CS substrates and related technologies.

All the considered materials are now available in a 4 inch format except bulk GaN that has just been released in 3 inch in Japan. This diameter expansion helps to lower the manufacturing cost of CS-based devices and to mass market affordable products.

This new report offers a unique panorama of the compound semiconductor substrate business in a single package. It highlights the main metrics and the key market trends that will help material and equipment vendors to position their R&D efforts and anticipate the changes and forecasted evolution of their business.