Due to the slow growth in the GaAs device market and increasing use of multi-band GaAs power amplifiers in cellular applications, total demand for semi-insulating (SI) GaAs epitaxial substrates (from manufacturers such as IQE, VPEC, Kopin, RFMD, Hitachi Cable, Intelliepi and Sumitomo) fell by nearly 5% from 2011 to about 29,000 kilo square inches (ksi) in 2012, estimates market research firm Strategy Analytics in its Forecast and Outlook report ‘Markets for Semi-Insulating GaAs Epitaxial Substrates: 2012 – 2017’. The report forecasts that slowing demand from the GaAs device market will translate to slow growth in GaAs epitaxial substrate demand, with production reaching slightly more than 31,600 ksi by 2017.
“The decline in GaAs epitaxial substrate production hit both MBE and MOCVD structures in 2012, but not equally,” notes Eric Higham, director of the Strategy Analytics GaAs and Compound Semiconductor Technologies Service. “After a sharp increase in 2011, MOCVD material production fell by nearly 7% in 2012. Our results showed that MBE production, hit hard the previous two years, was more stable and fell by slightly less than 1%,” he adds.
“The decline in MOCVD production indicates the growing trend toward multi-band power amplifiers in handset applications,” says Asif Anwar, director in the Strategy Analytics Strategic Technologies Practice (STP). “The small drop in MBE production indicates the bulk of the handset switch conversion to other technologies is complete, with the MBE capability now being used for other applications."
The Strategy Analytics forecast segments the SI GaAs epitaxial substrate market by diameter, geography, epitaxial processing technique, application and supplier. The report also addresses trends and recent developments in these segments.
