China’s PMIC market

China’s PMIC market

Power management ICs have been one of the hot spots in China’s semiconductor market, with a growth rate higher than the average of the overall semiconductor market. From 2002 to 2006, the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of China’s power management IC market reached 30.1%.

In terms of applications, the growth of power management units (PMUs) will be the fastest in automotive electronics in the next 5 years. With the expanding output of automobiles, continuous upgrading of automotive PMU products, and the ever-increasing applications, the CAGR of China’s automotive electronics PMU market will be above 28% in 2007 through 2011. In addition, driven by 3G communications, Internet protocol television, and various network applications, the CAGR of MPUs for network communications in the next five years will be also over 25%.

According to the report of CCID, a Beijing-based market research company, more ASSP products will be used for certain applications, though ASSPs cannot solve all the power management demand of certain devices. CCID added that as portable equipment continues to rely on batteries for power and LCD screens continue to increase in size, applications for battery-charging ICs and display-driver ICs will increase.

The price for digital power ICs continues to decline and sales volumes continue to grow. More Chinese engineers have started to accept and use digital power supplies, especially in communications and industrial automation. Although the adoption of digital power is still far from widespread, the market is growing with digital power’s technical development.

Scott Li is an editor at our sister publication in Asia, Electronic Products China .