Doubles Growth For Home Appliance Semiconductor Market In 2013

In a sign that the digital home and Internet of Things (IoT) industries are increasingly robust, sales growth for semiconductors for home appliances is set to double this year, according to IHS iSuppli.
The research firm reported Monday that the home appliance semiconductor market is projected to grow by more than 12 percent in 2013, with revenue reaching an estimated $2.6 billion. That's up from $2.3 billion in 2012, a year that saw 6.8 percent revenue growth from 2011.
The appliances using the most semiconductors today are room air conditioners and washing machine, which have accounted for 60 percent of the semiconductor industry's home appliance revenue in 2013, according to IHS.

"The strong performance of the major home appliances industry is fueling a similar trend in the semiconductor market," Dinesh Kithany, senior analyst for home appliance research at HIS, said in a statement. "Just as consumers—especially those in the emerging countries—have been spending more freely on major home appliances, the semiconductor market for appliances is being pulled along in corresponding healthy fashion, also supported by an increase in the use of electronics in these devices."

IHS predicted that double-digit growth in the home appliance semiconductor market would continue next year and through 2015, before "settling down to the still-high 9 percent range during the following two years." Looking four years out, the research firm forecast that global revenue in the market will hit $3.8 billion in 2017.

While the bulk of microcontrollers shipped today for home appliances have 8-bit instruction sets, IHS predicted that 32-bit chip shipments will grow quickly in the next four years "thanks to their intensified use in electronic displays, touch controls, sensors and inverter-based technology within major home appliances."

IHS reported that power semiconductors like insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) discretes and modules are set to be the "largest and fastest-growing chip segment" over the next several years.
"Other growth drivers for the major home appliance semiconductor trade include the widening use of electronic displays, touch controls, and sensor technology; an increased need for better power management; and the adoption of smart grids or smart-meters as well as networked or connected appliances as major home appliance supplierd.s sharpen focus on product innovation and marketing initiatives," the research firm sai