Base station power amplifier transistor market likely to exceed $1 billion in 2014

BOSTON, USA: The recently released Strategy Analytics GaAs and Compound Semiconductor Technologies Service (GaAs) Data Model, “Cellular Infrastructure Component Demand,” forecasts that power amplifier (PA) transistor revenue from base stations will grow from nearly $520 million in 2009 to slightly more than $1 billion in 2014.

Consumer adoption of new applications, growing wireless subscriptions and next generation standards are fueling base station and PA growth.

This Strategy Analytics report also forecasts traditional macro and microcell base station deployment will peak at slightly over 1 million base stations per year in 2012 before falling to slightly less than 1 million in 2014. Strategy Analytics sees explosive growth for lower capacity pico and femtocell base stations, estimating that they will exceed 7.8 million units deployed per year by 2014.

“Mobile operators are responding to consumer demand for data-centric applications by rolling out high data rate base stations,” noted Eric Higham, Director of the Strategy Analytics GaAs and Compound Semiconductor Technologies Service. “These higher rates require a network architecture that makes uses of smaller base stations, which will fuel strong semiconductor industry growth.”

Asif Anwar, Director in the Strategy Analytics Strategic Technologies Practice, added, “We expect to see the market share of gallium nitride (GaN) transistors increase, but LDMOS will remain the dominant power amplifier transistor technology.”