3 February 2011

Base-station PA transistor market to exceed $1bn in 2014

Power amplifier (PA) transistor revenue from base-stations will grow from nearly $520m in 2009 to slightly more than $1bn in 2014, forecasts the Strategy Analytics GaAs and Compound Semiconductor Technologies Service (GaAs) Data Model ‘Cellular Infrastructure Component Demand’. Growth in base-stations and PAs is being fueled by consumer adoption of new data applications, growing wireless subscriptions and next -generation standards, says the market research firm.

The report also forecasts that traditional macro- and micro-cell 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 femto-cell base-stations, to more than 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,” notes Eric Higham, director of the Strategy Analytics GaAs and Compound Semiconductor Technologies Service. “These higher rates require a network architecture that makes use of smaller base-stations, which will fuel strong semiconductor industry growth,” he adds.

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

Tags: Base-station PAs

Visit: www.strategyanalytics.com

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