News Article
Silicon grabs compound semiconductor market share
According to Strategy Analytics' latest report, financial results for the second calendar quarter of 2012, the compound semiconductor industry showed sequential revenue growth. However, the industry is only slightly ahead of 2011 revenue performance. The result is an industry much closer to breakeven than substantive growth. This is according to the firm's GaAs and Compound Semiconductor Technologies Service (GaAs) viewpoint, the "Compound Semiconductor Industry Review July - September 2012: Microelectronics" report. Most of the companies highlighted in the publication use compound semiconductors such as gallium arsenide, gallium nitride, silicon carbide and silicon germanium materials. However, the report also details several silicon-based product announcements for devices that are directly competitive to their compound semiconductor equivalents. Eric Higham, Director of the Strategy Analytics GaAs and Compound Semiconductor Technologies Service (GaAs) points out that many companies are struggling to show growth, reaffirming that 2012 will be a low-growth year for the compound semiconductor industry. Asif Anwar, Director, Strategy Analytics Strategic Technologies Practice explains, "Part of the issue is the strength of some of the silicon-based product solutions. We are seeing companies like Javelin and Amalfi Semiconductor, which is now part of RFMD along with Peregrine Semiconductor, release some very innovative products that are taking share away from the incumbent compound semiconductor devices". This viewpoint summarises financial, product, contract and employment developments from leading semiconductor device suppliers from July - September of 2012. These announcements address a variety of commercial and military applications products and companies that use complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) silicon technologies, and GaAs, GaN, SiC, SiGe materials.
