The worldwide wireless infrastruture gallium arsenide (GaAs) devices market value will grow to $320m in 2015, primarily driven by increase in the number of base station sectors, according to a Strategy Analytics’ report.
The report, GaAs and Compound Semiconductor Technologies Service (GaAs) Forecast and Outlook, "Wireless Infrastructure RF Power Device Demand: 2011 – 2015," forecasts that the number of base station sector shipments will increase to slightly more than 9.2 million in 2015.
More than half of these sectors will be for lower power, smaller cells, the report said.
The increase in the number of base station sectors will be contributed by developments like MIMO (Multiple Input/Multiple Output) antennas, heterogeneous networks, remote radio heads and small cells.
Strategy Analytics director of GaAs and Compound Semiconductor Technologies Service Eric Higham said operators are implementing networks that rely on smaller, lower power cell footprints to ensure that consumers continue to embrace data applications, and this architecture expands opportunities for GaAs components.
Strategy Analytics director of Strategic Technologies Practice Asif Anwar said, "4G technologies, like LTE, are forcing the network evolution to larger numbers of lower power infrastructure sectors which will increase the opportunity for GaAs amplifiers."
