Yole, a global component research organization, and IC Insights are unanimously optimistic about the application of CMOS image sensors in various industries, as well as broad and strong market prospects. Although it has been ten years since the release of the iPhone, the demand for CMOS image sensors in smartphones has slowed down, but automotive electronics, medical and industrial, AR/VR, machine vision are ready to usher in the next wave of rapid growth...
Yole: CIS CAGR of 10.5% over the next five years
According to a survey conducted by French market research firm Yole Developpement on the current situation of the CIS industry, the global CIS market reached a size of $11.6 billion in 2016, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.5% between 2016 and 2022.
Due to its large size and dedicated performance, the mobile market segment is still the main application of CMOS image sensor (CIS) technology. However, security and automotive applications are also following suit, with a variety of attractive products introduced through disruptive CIS innovations.
So, what is the current state of the CIS industry today? Sony remains the undisputed market leader, with a market share of around 42% due to its key position in the mobile market. They were followed by Samsung (18%), OmniVision (12%), and ON Semiconductor. 6%) and Panasonic (3%). In addition, the report includes other visual imaging companies such as Basler, CMOSIS, Cognex, Fairchild Imaging, FLIR, New Imaging Technologies, odos imaging, Omron, Point Grey, Teledyne e2v, Teledyne DALSA and Toshiba Teli.
There are many new entrants in the two major markets of safety and automotive, and they are still open and competitive markets. The camera market is still a key application for CIS, dominated by new technologies such as dual camera lenses. Technological innovation is a strong condition for market competition, such as multi-stack and mix-stack manufacturing technologies.
For the 2017 CMOS image sensor market, Yole imaging business analyst Pierre Cambou and Jean-Luc Jaffard (former STMicroelectronics, Red Belt Conseil) conducted a year-long survey and provided observations and analysis of this market.
Pierre Cambou said: "It's been ten years since the birth of the Apple iPhone and the era of smartphones. Since then, CMOS imaging has benefited from a huge market demand and a technology-oriented environment. Photo and video are the primary applications that are completely transformed from new use cases, new devices, and new technologies.
Jean-Luc Jaffard noted: "The mobile market is key to the CIS industry. In fact, despite the saturation of mobile phones, the CIS market has continued to grow steadily due to the introduction of dual lenses, apertures and 3D cameras. These new technologies are rewriting the drivers of the CIS market, shifting from a focus on form and image quality to interactivity. â€
In addition, penetration into higher value-added markets such as automotive, security and medical shows that CIS products are beginning to completely rewrite the application areas of the industry. The adoption of CIS technology enables the creation of a higher degree of automation at low cost, while using new available computing architectures such as deep learning. The CMOS image sensor industry is currently in a virtuous cycle where new technologies deliver real value to customers.
In addition to the transformation of existing applications, new applications such as drone photography, biometrics, AR, and VR are beginning to drive overall growth, and also rely more on CIS's technological innovation.
IC Insights: CIS CAGR of 2% over the next five years
According to the latest data released by IC Insights, embedded imaging applications from automotive, security, machine vision, medical, virtual reality, wearables, and other new uses will offset the slow growth in demand for CMOS image sensors in mobile phone cameras.
CMOS image sensor sales figures have been breaking past records, and this winning streak will remain until 2021. In 2017, CMOS image sensors grew 9% from 2016 to $11.5 billion, and from 2016 to 2021, CMOS image sensor sales grew at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.7% to $15.9 billion, far outpacing other semiconductor devices.
Over the past decade, since the cameras of the first generation of smartphones were equipped with CMOS image sensors, they have gradually leveled off after strong growth. However, a new generation of embedded cameras and digital imaging applications will begin a new round of strong growth in automotive, medical, machine vision, security, wearable systems, virtual and augmented reality applications, and user identification interfaces.
Competition among CMOS image sensor vendors is heating up, leveraging new 3D sensing capabilities for 3D imaging and distance measurement using time-of-flight (ToF) technology and other technologies. ToF determines and detects the distance to faces, gestures, and other things by measuring the time it takes for light to bounce off the emitted light, usually an infrared laser or LED, to the sensor.
CMOS technology has advanced to support the integration of ToF sensors into a small chip, which in turn and CMOS image sensors are packaged into a single mold. Sony, Samsung, OmniVision, ON Semiconductor, ST and others have already introduced 3D image sensors, and Infineon supports ToF for 3D modeling based on CMOS image sensor technology.
IC Insights predicts that automotive electronics will be the fastest growing segment of the CMOS image sensor market, with a compound growth rate of 14% and sales of $2.3 billion from 2016 to 2021. In addition, the smartphone has entered the dual-camera system application, which improves the depth of field effect, and the background bokeh is comparable to that of a high-quality SLR camera. CMOS image sensor sales for mobile phone cameras grew at a compound annual growth rate of only 2% to reach $7.6 billion, accounting for about 47% of the total market, and sales of $7 billion in 2016, accounting for 67% of total sales. (International e-Business Information)