Growth of cellphone application MPUs (10%) is forecast to remain near the top on the growth list for a fifth consecutive year. Though the rate of growth for cellphone application MPUs has cooled in recent years, IC Insights still forecasts a solid 10% growth year for this market as smartphone shipments remain an attractive end-use application for IC markets. Signal conversion (DAC analogue, etc.) devices are also expected to show a 10% increase in 2016 thanks to their implementation across a wide variety of consumer, communication and computing devices, as well as in other systems to monitor and control the interface between analogue and digital signals. The market for 32-bit MCUs is forecast to increase 8% with ‘intelligent’ cars the catalyst for much of this growth. Driver information systems and many of the increasing number of semi-autonomous driving features such as self-parking, advanced cruise control, and collision-avoidance rely on 32-bit MCUs. Complex 32-bit MCUs are expected to account for over 25% of the processing power in vehicles in the next few years.
Figure 1 – 2016 forecast of IC market growth by segment
Other notable categories include the previously high-flying tablet MPU market, which is forecast to sputter to just 2% growth in 2016 as enthusiasm fades for these systems. DRAM is expected to show a steep market decline this year and drop to become the second-largest IC product category (trailing only the standard PC, server MPU market) in 2016. After registering big gains in 2013 and 2014, the DRAM market fell 3% in 2015 and is forecast to tumble another 8% in 2016 as oversupply and waning desktop and notebook computer demand force suppliers to slash average selling prices to move product. Worldwide DRAM ASP growth was down 4% in 2015 and is on track to fall 11% in 2016.
