The semiconductor market is expected to grow substantially in 2022, achieving an 11% rise in sales, according to market research firm IC Insights.
This growth is happening despite rising inflation, higher energy costs, supply chain issues including the ongoing chip shortage, lockdowns in China over COVID-19 and Russia’s war in Ukraine. These challenges won’t deter the semiconductor market from reaching $680.7 billion this year.
The growth is happening due to stronger than anticipated microprocessor sales in the embedded MPU category and in cellular application processors, which is set to rise 22% this year.
The forecast calls on unchanged growth in analog ICs up 12% for the year and logic ICs, up 11% for the year. Non-IC semiconductor market categories — optoelectronics, sensors, discretes — which account for about 17% of total semiconductor revenue worldwide will see lower total sales volume in 2022 from about 11% earlier in the year to a still healthy 9% growth.
Much of these lowered sales will be from optoelectronics sales because of weak gains in CMOS image sensors and lamp devices, IC Insights said. However, the weakness in this market will be offset by strong demand for discrete semiconductors including the sales of power transistors and diodes.
