Foundry sales growing faster than chip market
Foundry IC sales are set to grow a further 12 percent to reach $53.7 billion in 2015, according to the two organizations.
Foundry-made ICs are growing as a percentage of the total market from 21 percent in 2004 to 24 percent in 2009 followed by a marked jump to 37 percent in 2014. This suggests the industry is approaching the steep part of an S-shaped curve of transition as former integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) go fab-lite or fabless. Almost all chip startups join the market as fabless companies. By 2018, foundry-made ICs will represent 46 percent of the industry’s total integrated circuit revenues, GSA and IC Insights assert.
Total foundry IC sales from 2009 to 2018 and growth rate. Source: IC Insights.
The market for foundry-made ICs will enjoy a compound annual growth rate of nearly 11 percent over the period 2013 to 2018, almost double that of the total IC industry.
At present about 88 percent of contract wafer-processing sales are generated by pure-play IC foundries with 12 percent coming from integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) that provide foundry services to other companies.
Pure-play foundry sales – as opposed to those from IDMs who also offer foundry services – are forecast to increase 13 percent in 2015 to $47.8 billion after climbing 17 percent in 2014 and 15 percent in 2013. Meanwhile, IDM foundry revenues are projected to grow j2 percent in 2015 to $5.9 billion following a decline of 12 percent in 2014 and a 2 percent increase in 2013.
Capital expenditures by IC foundries (pure-play and IDMs) are on track to grow by about 9 percent in 2014 to a record-high $23.2 billion compared to the previous peak of $21.3 billion in 2013, which was just a 3 percent increase from 2012. Foundry capital spending is forecast to grow 7 percent in 2015 to set another record high of $24.8 billion.
Wafer-fab utilization at the four largest pure-play IC foundries will increase to an estimated 92 percent in 2014 compared to 89 percent in 2013 and 88 percent in 2012.
Fabless customers are estimated to account for 77 percent of pure-play foundry revenues in 2014 with IDMs representing 18 percent and systems makers being about 8 percent of total sales. In 2008, the sales split was 69 percent to fabless customers, 29 percent to IDMs, and 2 percent to systems companies
Communications ICs represented an estimate 53 percent of pure-play foundry sales in 2014, followed by consumer-product ICs at 18 percent, “other" ICs (for such applications as automotive, industrial, and medical systems) at 15 percent, and computer ICs at 14 percent of the total revenue.
Customers based in the Americas will account for nearly 62 percent of pure-play foundry sales in 2014, followed by Asia-Pacific customers at 29 percent, Europe at 6 percent, and Japan at just 4 percent of the total.
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Foundries grow faster than IC market, says IC Insights
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