5 June 2014

Wireless infrastructure drives RF power semiconductor market over $1bn in 2013

Spending on RF power semiconductors for the wireless infrastructure markets leapt up again in 2013 to more than $1bn, according to the latest study ‘RF Power Semiconductors’ from ABI Research’s High-Power Active Devices research service, which examines devices that have power outputs of greater than 4W and operate at frequencies up to 3.8GHz (representing the bulk of applications in use currently).

While other markets are seeing some moderation in growth as the global economic picture and political factors come into play, some sub-markets are showing a nice upside, the firm says. Also, gallium nitride (GaN) – long seen as the likely promising new ‘material of choice’ for RF power semiconductors – is continuing its march to capture share, especially in wireless infrastructure.

“Gallium nitride is delivering increasing market share in 2014 and is forecast to be a significant force by 2019,” notes ABI Research director Lance Wilson. “It bridges the gap between two older technologies, exhibiting the high-frequency performance of gallium arsenide combined with the power handling capabilities of silicon LDMOS,” he adds. “It is now a mainstream technology which has achieved meaningful market share and in future will capture a significant part of the market.”

The vertical markets showing the strongest performance outside of wireless infrastructure in the RF power semiconductor business are the defense-oriented segments, which Wilson describes as now being “a significant market” in total. Despite the poor press for defense-oriented electronic hardware, the actual performance in 2013 was better than originally thought for some sub-segments, he adds.

The last study that ABI Research published on this topic appeared late in 2013. With the current release, analysis of the six main vertical segments (wireless infrastructure; military; industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM); broadcast; commercial avionics and air traffic control; and non-cellular communications), which was previously subdivided into 24 sub-segments, is expanded to 29 sub-segments.

Tags: ABI RF power semiconductors GaN

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