GaAs market set for surge

By Colleen Taylor, Contributing Editor -- Electronic News, 5/7/2007

As the popularity of next-generation wireless applications continues to grow, the gallium arsenide (GaAs) microelectronics industry is set for a major surge in the coming years, according to the latest report from market research firm Strategy Analytics. The GaAs market will have a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12 percent, growing from $3 billion in 2006 to over $5 billion by 2011, the firm said.

GaAs has been positioned as a semiconductor rival to silicon (Si), due its light-emitting qualities, higher breakdown voltages, and relatively quieter operation at high frequencies. However, GaAs is less abundant and more expensive to process than Si.

Wireless applications will provide the growth engine for the GaAs industry, accounting for 79 percent of total GaAs MMIC demand in 2011, the firm noted. Cellular handsets will remain the largest market for GaAs devices, but as the traditional mobile handset market continues to cool down, Wi-Fi applications are predicted to become the second largest market for GaAs components from 2007 onward, the firm said.

"We are seeing a variety of power amplifier (PA) approaches applied in the cellular handset front-end ranging from PA, PA-switch and PA-filter modules," Asif Anwar, director of the Strategy Analytics GaAs and compound semiconductor technologies service, said in a statement. "Regardless of approach, we believe that GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBT) will rule the PA with Si LDMOS continuing to lose market share."

"GaAs device demand from the Wi-Fi market will grow at a CAAGR of 28 percent through 2011," Stephen Entwistle, VP of the strategic technologies practice at Strategy Analytics, added in the statement.

Outside of wireless applications, GaAs device demand from consumer (CATV and DBS), millimeter-wave and fiber-optic markets will grow at CAGRs ranging from 6 percent to 11 percent through 2011, the firm said.