The semiconductor growth rate is expected to rise further this year.

IC Insights announced on the 16th that the global IC market will grow by 24% in 2021. This is a 5%p increase from the recent 19% forecast. In addition, the global IC market is expected to exceed 500 billion dollars for the first time this year.

Looking at the top 10 growth rates, industrial logic semiconductors are expected to grow 49% year-on-year, and DRAM is expected to grow 41% year-on-year.

It forecasted that battlefield logic semiconductors would grow by 39%, consumer logic semiconductors by 38%, smartphone application MPUs by 34%, battlefield analog semiconductors by 31%, display drivers by 31%, wireless communication analog semiconductors by 28%, wireless communication logic semiconductors by 26%, and consumer analog semiconductors by 25%.

DRAM and NAND flash are expected to continue to lead the overall IC market growth in 2021 due to increasing bit prices.

The price per bit of DRAM rose 28% from 39 cents per Gb in the fourth quarter of 2020 to 50 cents per Gb in the second quarter of 2021. It was also expected that the price per bit of DRAM would continue to rise in the second half of this year as supply tightens.

The NAND flash market is also expected to grow by 22%. The price per bit of NAND fell 26% from Q1 2020 to Q1 2021, but prices are expected to stabilize in Q2 and increase through the remaining two quarters of the year. The overall memory market is expected to grow 32% in 2021.

Even excluding memory, the overall IC market is expected to grow by 21%.

IC Insights forecasts double-digit growth in all major general-purpose analog and application-specific analog market segments in 2021.

In particular, the automotive application-specific analog segment is expected to drive analog market growth this year.