8 October 2015

GaAs RF device revenue to grow from another record of $7bn in 2015 to peak of $8bn in 2018

Driven by increasing gallium arsenide content in cellular terminals, the GaAs device market experienced another year of record revenues in 2014 and will break the $7bn barrier this year then surpass $8bn by 2019, according to the Strategy Analytics Advanced Semiconductor Applications (ASA) spreadsheet model and report 'GaAs Device Forecast and Outlook: 2014–2019'. The report states that GaAs device revenue will grow even though price erosion and competitive technologies will slow the growth rates.

The report concludes that wireless applications remain the dominant segment of GaAs device market, accounting for just under 80% of all revenue. In particular, the cellular terminal portion of the wireless segment accounts for slightly more than 50% of all GaAs device revenue. New architectures will increase the GaAs content in cellular terminals and, even though CMOS power amplifiers (PAs) will continue capturing market share, the cellular terminal share of the market will grow to slightly more than 55% by the end of the forecast period.

In response to price erosion and losing market share to competitive technologies, GaAs device revenue will peak in 2018 at just over $8bn, before declining by less than 1% in 2019, forecasts the report.

Picture: GaAs device revenue market share by application.

"Despite continuing concern in some quarters about the future of GaAs devices, the market saw its second consecutive year of double-digit growth," notes Eric Higham, Strategy Analytics' service director, Advanced Semiconductor Applications. "Other technologies are capturing market share, but evolving device and network architectures need increasing GaAs content and this is offsetting some of the share loss," he adds. 

"Defense systems, particularly in radar, communications and EW [electronics warfare] applications, still rely on the performance of GaAs devices," says Asif Anwar, director of Strategy Analytics' Strategic Technologies Practice. "We anticipate these segments will continue to fuel GaAs revenue growth."

Tags: GaAs RF market

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