There’s More to the Picture Than Meets the Eye, and in the future it will only become more so

One of the fastest growing markets in the semiconductor industry is being driven by businesses in the solid-state imaging sector. An overview of the world-wide CIS (CMOS Image Sensor) market is illustrated in Figure 1.4.1. The actual CAGR (compound annual growth rate) from 2010 until 2019 was 15.2% in units and 16.9% in sales, while the forecasted CAGR from 2019 until 2024F is 11.5% in units and 7.2% in sales. Existing DRAM fabrication facilities are being converted into CIS manufacturing plants to cope with the increasing demand for CMOS image sensors [1]. Despite a small 4% drop in revenue, and nearly flat unit growth due to the disruptions caused by COVID-19 in 2020, in 2024F the CIS sector expects a record high of $26.1B and 11B units/year [2]. A simple calculation shows that over the course of 2020 (6.3B units, $18.2B), globally 200 image sensors are being produced every second at an average price of $2.9. Realizing this scale of production by the end of 2020 will require a total of 5.4M wafers (300mm diameter), which is equivalent to a silicon area of 76 soccer fields!