Semiconductor shipments to top 1 trillion units in 2018

IC Insights projects shipments will increase from 887 million units this year and will represent 9 percent CAGR over 40 years.

More than 1 trillion semiconductors are projected to ship in a calendar year for the first time in 2018, according to a forecast by market research firm IC Insights Inc.

The milestone achievement of about 1.02 trillion devices is expected to increase from 886.7 million units this year and about 950 billion units next year, according to the 2016 edition of IC Insights' McClean Report. The total includes all semiconductors such as ICs and opto-sensor-discrete or O-S-D devices.

Topping the 1 trillion mark in 2018 would represent an impressive 9 percent CAGR over the past 40 years, from 32.8 billion shipments in 1978, according to IC Insights. The firm said the growth "demonstrates how increasingly dependent on semiconductors the world has become."

The single largest growth year for the semiconductor industry over the 40-year period was 1984, when unit shipments increased by 34 percent, IC Insights said. The largest decline came in 2001, when the volume dropped by 19 percent in the wake of the dot-com bubble bust.

To read the full article, go to EETimes.

See a comparison table of selected PCB assembly suppliers on GlobalSources.com