Global semiconductor sales are expected to be better than expected this year due to the blessing of 5G and drive memory demand, and growth will accelerate next year (2021), with sales expected to hit a record high.

The Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association (JEITA) issued a press release on the 1st that according to the latest forecast report released by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics Association (WSTS), although affected by the spread of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, due to the increase in 5G smartphone demand, coupled with The epidemic has pushed up the popularization of home office and online teaching, driving the increase in PC and data center related demand, and increasing the storage demand.

Contrarian growth, global semiconductor sales will increase by 5.1% in 2020

This year, global semiconductor sales are expected to increase by 5.1% year-on-year to $433.145 billion, which is better than the previous (June 2020) estimate of $425.966 billion.

WSTS said that among the world’s four largest semiconductor markets in 2020, the US market sales are expected to increase by 18.7% to $93.343 billion, Europe will decrease by 8.4% to $36.452 billion, and the Asia-Pacific region will increase by 3.8% to $267.590 billion , the Japanese market will decrease by 0.6% to 35.759 billion US dollars.

In terms of product types, global sales of chips (ICs) are expected to increase by 6.4% to US$354.556 billion in 2020, discrete components are expected to decrease by 1.2% to US$23.593 billion, LEDs and other optoelectronic components (Optoelectronics) ) will decrease by 2.6% to $40.481 billion annually, and Sensor will increase by 7.4% to $14.515 billion.

In terms of IC items, memory sales in 2020 are expected to increase by 12.2% to US$119.44 billion, Logic including CPU and other products will increase by 6.5% to US$113.419 billion, and Micro will increase by 2.0% per year. % to 67.744 billion US dollars, Analog will increase 0.03% to 53.954 billion US dollars.

　Market expected to hit record highs in 2021

Looking forward to next year, WSTS pointed out that under the premise that the spread of the new crown pneumonia epidemic has improved, it is expected that the global economy will recover, and the semiconductor market is expected to grow rapidly, especially the demand for the automobile industry, which has been hit hard this year, will recover rapidly. Further popularization of 5G is expected to boost demand for a wide range of products.

Therefore, it is estimated that the global semiconductor market will increase by 8.4% to US$469.403 billion next year, which will be better than the previous estimate, and will surpass the US$468.7 billion in 2018 and set a new record.

　　Memory plant ramps up production

Kioxia, the world’s second-largest NAND Flash Memory factory, announced on October 29 that it will increase the production of 3D NAND Flash “BiCS FLASH” in response to expanding demand, and will build a new plant in the Yokkaichi factory area. Plant No. 7″, the new plant will start construction in the spring of 2021.

Kioxia pointed out that with the popularization of cloud services, 5G services, IoT, AI, autonomous driving and other technologies, in the medium and long term, the NAND Flash market is expected to expand in the future.

The overall construction of the “7th Factory” will be divided into two phases. This time, the first phase of the project is expected to be completed in the spring of 2022.