Semiconductor chip sales on track to top 1 trillion units in 2018

A report from market research firm IC Insights points out shipments of semiconductors are on track to top the 1 trillion unit mark in 2018. Electronic equipment is found everywhere around is and semiconductor shipments have doubled over the last 13 years. This year, shipments are expected to top the 900 billion unit mark.

The vast majority of shipments consists of optoelectronics, sensors, actuators and discretes. Unit shipments have grown at a rate of 9 percent per year since 1978, when an estimated 32.6 billion semiconductors shipped.

Over the past 40 years, the largest annual increase for semiconductor unit shipments was 34 percent in 1984. The largest decline was 19 percent in 2001, following the dot-com bust, IC Insights said.

Unit shipments fell in both 2008 and 2009, after the global financial meltdown, the only time on record that the semiconductor industry contracted for two consecutive years. But shipments rebounded in 2010, growing 25 percent, the second-largest one-year increase in the past 40 years, according to the market research firm.

More details at EE Times.