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The COVID-nineteen pandemic has driven tremendous growth in semiconductor sales, simply questions grow about when the nail might fade and what happens to the marketplace when it does. The analyst firm IDC has published its analysis of what it expects to happen in 2022 and 2023 equally manufacturers make long-term adjustments and new capacity comes online.

The semiconductor market grew by ten.8 percent in 2020, but it'south expected to easily clear that bar in 2021, with 17.iii per centum growth. The report notes that growth is being driven by "mobile phones, notebooks, servers, automotive, smart home, gaming, wearables, and Wi-Fi admission points," along with increased memory prices.

IDC expects semiconductor acquirement to grow by 128 percent. Mobile phones are expected to grow by 1.28x, while game consoles, smart home, and wear products will expand by ane.34x, 1.2x, and 1.21x. Revenue in the automotive semiconductor industry should be upward past i.23x, with the boosted welcome news that shortages should be substantially alleviated by twelvemonth's cease. Notebooks and x86 server revenue should increment by ane.12x and one.25x, respectively.

"The semiconductor content story is intact and not just does it benefit the semiconductor companies, but the unit volume growth in many of the markets that they serve will besides go on to drive very good growth for the semiconductor marketplace," says Mario Morales, IDC's group VP for enabling technologies and semiconductors.

Unfortunately, there's also the possibility of a decline in late 2022 or early 2023 depending on what happens with demand. TSMC, Samsung, GlobalFoundries, and Intel have all announced large chapters expansions. The diverse starting time and second-tier foundries have increased production at existing facilities and are building all-new fabs around the world to handle anticipated long-term need.

If currently loftier levels of demand do not continue, the semiconductor market could find itself with an enormous glut of boosted capacity no one needs. The diverse foundries don't seem specially concerned about that effect at the moment. Information technology'due south possible that TSMC, Intel, and Samsung take contingency plans in place that would allow them to finish facilities more slowly over fourth dimension if demand does not materialize as predicted. Intel's Pat Gelsinger is on the record as maxim he disagrees with the analysts regarding the potential for a about-term downturn and believes the future for silicon production is bright, fifty-fifty with these global capacity increases on the horizon.

Intel is unlikely to hit the pause push button speedily; the company was burned in recent memory by its decision to break the bring-up of Fab 42. This may have made sense when Intel fabricated the determination in 2014, just the company's supply shortages in 2018 and 2019 were exacerbated by not having enough product capability online. TSMC and Samsung's beliefs is a niggling harder to predict. But with Intel building fabs in Europe and launching itself into the foundry business, neither rival foundry is going to adventure actions that would leave them looking behind their contest.

IDC reports that front-end manufacturing is beginning to meet demand but that "larger issues" and shortages continue to disrupt backend manufacturing. Fab utilization remains near 100 percent and is expected to remain there for the foreseeable future.

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