The Global Market for Digital Power ICs is Forecast to Reach US$2.2 Billion by 2022

Fast Approaching Technology Limitation of Analog Power Solutions & the Search for Alternate Design Strategies to Drive the Digital Power ICs Market, According to a New Report by Global Industry Analysts, Inc.

GIA launches comprehensive analysis of industry segments, trends, growth drivers, market share, size and demand forecasts on the global Digital Power ICs market. The global market for Digital Power ICs is forecast to reach US$2.2 billion by 2022, driven by technology developments that are helping tear down traditional barriers in complexity which hitherto limited digital power technologies coupled with the rapidly approaching technology limitation of analog power solutions and the ensuing search for newer and more efficient power designs.

While the importance of power management in electronics remains well known, a major trend sweeping through the field of power semiconductors is the migration towards digital chip architectures designed to process information in binary numbers as against conventional analog designs that process information from real world elements such as light, heat, and pressure. Some of the factors driving the future of digital power integrated circuits (ICs) include emphasis on energy savings, greater reliability, higher performance, easy and cost effective system integration, and size reduction. Designing power circuits has today become a complex engineering feat given the blistering growth in the capability of modern microprocessors. Increase in clock speeds by over sixfold and processing speeds beyond 50 or 60 MHz tend to result in a more complex and difficult system design, while simultaneously changing the electrical dynamics of integrated circuit packages and circuit boards. Faster performance and increased battery life measurable in hours are major product design criterions for success in the marketplace. With energy consumption increasingly becoming the gold standard in evaluating the operational qualities of a semiconductor, the shift towards all digital architectures is finally gaining momentum in the conservative power supply market. Strong pressures from political, environmental, and consumer front are spurring the success of digital power ICs. Defined as ICs that operate using digital discrete signals, digital power ICs utilize binary scheme of digital signaling. Although easier to design than analog circuits, digital power ICs are expensive in comparison despite the steady fall in cost that comes with technology maturity.

Major end-use application markets expected to drive strong baseline growth in the digital power ICs include high-end computing, storage and networking; and telecommunication infrastructure. Emerging applications still largely in R&D albeit with long-term potential to power growth include LED lighting and high-end digital consumer electronics. Also, benefiting the technology interest in digital power is the fast approaching technology limitation of analog power solutions. For instance, traditional dc/dc converters are hitting a plateau in terms of performance optimization. Power converters with analogue control algorithms offer marginal improvements in efficiency. The scenario is resulting in chip designers seeking alternate design strategies and approaches. The coming years are forecast to witness increased substitution of analogue-to-digital converters, error-signal feedback amplifiers, pulse-width modulators, ramp generator, and comparator with digital-signal-processing techniques. Digital buck-converters will rapidly replace analogue control loop techniques. With several of the digital power IC vendors restructuring their business models to provide a combination of hardware, software, and support services, adoption is expected to receive a boost.

As stated by the new market research report on Digital Power ICs, Asia-Pacific ranks as the largest and the fastest growing market worldwide with a CAGR of 20.8% over the analysis period. The growth in the region is led by strong Internet and enterprise IT penetration and the ensuing increase in demand for networking equipment; rapid expansion of the telecommunication industry and the resulting expansion of telecom networks and infrastructure; and rise of low cost Asian countries as global hubs for electronics manufacturing.  

Major players in the market include Analog Devices, Inc., Bel Fuse Inc., Dialog Semiconductor, Ericsson Power Modules AB, Exar Corporation, Infineon Technologies AG, Intersil Corporation, Linear Technology Corporation, Maxim Integrated Products, Inc., Microchip Technology, Inc., NXP Semiconductors N.V., ON Semiconductor Corporation, Rohm Semiconductor, Qualcomm Incorporated, STMicroelectronics, and Texas Instruments Incorporated, among others.

The research report titled “Digital Power ICs: A Global Strategic Business Report” announced by Global Industry Analysts Inc., provides a comprehensive review of market trends, issues, drivers, mergers, acquisitions and other strategic industry activities of global companies.  The report provides market estimates and projections for all major geographic markets such as the U.S., Japan, Europe (France, Germany, Italy, UK, Spain, Russia and Rest of Europe), Asia-Pacific (China, South Korea, Taiwan and Rest of Asia-Pacific), and Rest of World. The report also analyzes the market by following product types - Digital Power Management (DPM) and Digital Power Control (DPC). The report analyzes the global market by the following application types - Computing, Networking and Storage, Telecom Equipment and Others.

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