Cellular phone chip sales to hit $13.0 billion in 2003, says
In-Stat
A service of Semiconductor Business News, CMP Media Inc.
Story posted 10 a.m. EST/7 a.m., PST, 6/16/99
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. --Total revenues for semiconductors used in cellular telephones will
grow from $6.8 billion in 1998 to $8.5 billion this year, according to a new market forecast by
In-Stat here. The market researcher predicts chip sales into cellular and personal
communications services (PCS) handset products will increase at a compound annual
growth rate of 14% from 1998 to 2003, when total revenues will hit $13.0 billion.
Memory chip revenues in wireless handset applications will grow even faster at 32% during
the five-year period. In 1998, cellular phones used $900 million of memory chips and that
total will reach $3.5 billion, said analyst Joyce Putscher, director of In-Stat's Converging
Markets & Technologies Group in Scottsdale.
The integration of functions on fewer devices will combine low noise amplifier (LNA) and
mixer as well as codec with digital baseband or analog baseband and power management
with analog baseband, said the In-Stat report.
"There will be a transition from discrete, separate Flash and SRAM packages to one
package with stacked Flash and SRAM chips, thereby fulfilling the manufacturer's need for
memory density, versatility, and flexibility for building many different models," Putscher said.
During the next four years, digital cellular phones and third-generation handsets will take on
a growing number of data services, including "untethered" e-mail and browsers for Internet
access in addition to multi-mode phones, which will require higher semiconductor content,
noted In-Stat. |
