Sensors/actuators will break out of doldrums in 2014

SCOTTSDALE, USA: For 10 years, sensors and actuators have been the semiconductor industry's fastest growing market segment, driven by higher levels of embedded control, new wireless sensing applications, and intelligent portable systems-such as smartphones-that can respond to changes in their environment and locations.

However, in 2013, this normally vibrant category lost momentum and showed nearly no sales increase in the year, according to IC Insights' new 2014 O-S-D Report-A Market Analysis and Forecast for Optoelectronics, Sensors/Actuators, and Discretes.

The sensors/actuators market was flattened last year by slow unit growth and price erosion in its two largest sensor product categories-accelerometers/gyroscopes and magnetic-field sensors-as well as ongoing weakness in actuators, based on the analysis in the new 2014 O-S-D Report.

The slowdown in sensors and actuators had been brewing for a couple years with sales in this market plateauing in the 2011-2013 timeframe after surging to record-high levels from the 2009 downturn.

Inventory corrections in some cellphone segments, falling average selling prices (ASPs), and delays of purchases by cautious system makers caused the sensors/actuators business to stall out in 2013 with total revenues increasing just 0.3 percent to slightly more than $8.7 billion, but a new wave of stronger growth is expected to begin in 2014 as the global economy improves and new systems applications rejuvenate sales.

Worldwide sales of sensors and actuators are forecast to grow 14 percent to a new all-time high of $9.9 billion in 2014, followed by a 16 percent increase in 2015 to $11.4 billion, according to the new 350-page report, which also contains extensive coverage of optoelectronics and discrete semiconductors.

Between 2013 and 2018, the sensors/actuators market is projected to rise by a CAGR of 11.7 percent to reach $15.1 billion in the final forecast year of the 2014 O-S-D Report. Among the market growth drivers identified in the report are new multi-sensor smartphone platforms, wearable systems (such as smart watches, wireless medical devices, and personal activity trackers), "Internet of Things" applications, radio-frequency filtering actuators, pocket-sized projectors built with micro-mirror devices, laboratory-on-chip testing tools for drug, disease, and DNA analysis, microphone chips, fingerprint-identification sensors, and more automotive sensors for higher levels of safety and automation of driving.

In 2013, total sensor revenues grew by a below-average rate of 3 percent to reach a new record-high $5.4 billion compared to about $5.3 billion in 2012. Since 2003, semiconductor sensor sales have increased by a CAGR of 13% but growth rates have slowed in recent years. In 2013, revenues grew in two of the four of the sensor product categories, according to the new O-S-D Report.

Pressure sensor sales strengthened significantly in 2013, climbing 16 percent to a new all-time high of $1.3 billion due to new measurement applications in smartphones and other portable systems, medical equipment, embedded-control applications, and healthy growth rates in automotive markets.

However, acceleration/yaw sensor sales (for accelerometers and gyroscope devices) declined 2 percent to slightly less than $2.5 billion in 2013, while revenues for magnetic-field sensors (including electronic compass chips) fell 1 percent to $1.4 billion in the year.

Built with MEMS technology, acceleration/yaw sensors-the largest sensor category in terms of dollar volume-had not suffered a sales decline since 2005. Magnetic-field sensors-the largest unit-volume sensor category and second in dollar sales-had grown by double-digit annual percentages between 2010 and 2012 after declining 22 percent in the 2009 downturn.

Meanwhile, the large-but-eclectic actuator product category declined 4 percent in 2013 to about $3.3 billion after dropping 10 percent in 2012.