26 of 33 IC Products Forecast to Demonstrate Positive Growth in 2020

Number of IC categories with expected sales growth in 2020 represents a big reversal from only six growth segments in 2019.

IC Insights recently released the 2020 edition of The McClean Report.  The new analysis and forecast of the IC industry includes IC Insights’ 2020 ranking of sales growth rates for each of the 33 IC product categories defined by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization.  The top-10 fastest growing IC segments for 2020 are shown in Figure 1.

After posting the two worst growth rates among all IC product categories in 2019, NAND flash and DRAM are forecast to be among the top three fastest-growing IC segments in 2020. It is worth noting that DRAM and NAND flash were the two largest IC markets in terms of sales volume in 2019 and are forecast to repeat as the two largest IC sales categories again in 2020.

Figure 1

Sales growth in eight categories is expected to increase by 8% or more, which is IC Insights’ forecast growth rate for the total IC market in 2020.  Two product categories—Automotive-Special Purpose Logic and Embedded MPUs—appear on the top-growth list all three years, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 2 shows the distribution of growth rates for the 33 IC product categories in 2019 and IC Insights’ forecast for 2020.  A total of 26 IC products are forecast to show growth in 2020, which is a very strong turnaround from 2019 when only six product categories had positive growth.  In 2020, five products are expected to enjoy double-digit growth, an increase from four in 2019 but far from the 17 product categories with double-digit growth in 2018.

In 2020, only seven product categories are forecast show flat growth or a market decline compared to 27 product segments in 2019.

Figure 2