RF chip sales for cell phones will hit $7.7 billion by 2004, says report
Semiconductor Business News
(01/07/00, 01:11:27 PM EDT)
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Worldwide revenues for radio-frequency semiconductors in cellular telephones will reach $7.7 billion in 2004, nearly twice the size of the market in 1999, according to a new report by Strategies Unlimited. The research firm estimates that handsets used $3.9 billion in RF chips in 1999.
According to the report, demand for cell phone and PCS handsets will grow from 240 million units in 1999 to 600 million in 2004. Strategies Unlimited believes the number of cell phone and PCS subscribers will reach 1.3 billion worldwide in 2004.
The report said the largest mobile phone market for RF semiconductors is in the GSM segment, which started in Europe during the past decade and is spreading around the world. About $2 billion in RF chip sales went to GSM phones in 1999, said Strategies Unlimited. Analog cellular phones used $1.9 billion worth of RF chips in 1999, the research firm concluded.
The Mountain View research company said Infineon, Motorola, NEC, and Philips were the leading suppliers of silicon bipolar RF devices used in handsets. Gallium-arsenide (GaAs) radio-frequency chips accounted for 33% of the sales in 1999.
During the next five years, integration of RF and intermediate-frequency (IF) circuits will reduce the number of chips per handset with CMOS, BiCMOS and silicon-germanium (SiGe) technology playing major roles, said the research report. Strategies Unlimited predicted that GaAs ICs will continue to lead in power amplifier and switch sockets.
The emergence of Bluetooth wireless communications links and global positioning satellite (GPS) receivers for location-based services will reduce in a new $500 million RF chip market by 2004, said the 270-page report. Strategies Unlimited is selling the report for $4,750.
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