Worldwide semiconductor industry will grow 5.1% to $315bn market in 2011, up from $299bn in 2010, according to IT research firm Gartner.
Gartner said this is slightly down from their previous projection in the first quarter for 6.2% growth this year.
Concerns about the supply of silicon wafers, batteries, crystal oscillators, packaging and other specialized materials have been raised due to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, which however, have not derailed the electronics industry.
Gartner principal research analyst Peter Middleton said although the impact is less than feared, they are anticipating some residual effects in the third quarter of 2011 as friction in the supply chain may impact some production and some surprises may occur
"However, once third-quarter trends are established and supply chain participants are satisfied that all issues are understood and production is normalized, we expect an effort to draw down inventory, which will weaken the semiconductor market in late 2011 and early 2012," Middleton said.
Worldwide application-specific standard product (ASSP) revenue will grow to $99.4bn by the end of 2015 from the projected $79.7bn in 2011.
The application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) market will experience solid growth through 2015 due to Apple’s application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) investment and a commanding grip on popular mobile devices.
Nonoptical sensors will show highest overall growth through 2015 primarily due to automotive applications, whereas increased sensor use in applications, especially smartphones, tablets and video game hardware will show high growth.
Analyst have indicated that smartphones and tablets will contributed two-thirds of semiconductor industry revenue growth through 2013, as they are seeing rapid semiconductor growth in these categories.
Gartner research director Jon Erensen said one critical trend is the introduction of new generations of high-performance mobile application processors, which form the heart of both smartphones and media tablets.
"These high-end processors, combined with higher amounts of DRAM and NAND flash memory, will enable the performance and storage required for advanced new applications, including context-aware computing, augmented reality and computational photography," Erensen said.
"The similarity in architecture between smartphones and media tablets enables handset and tablet OEMs to centralize design around the application processor, which hosts the operating system of choice, and allows the vendor to leverage that design across multiple product categories."
