CIS market overview

• Market dynamics
• Revenue
• Shipment
• Pricing
• CIS market breakdown
• Demand vs. supply

CIS market demand

• Mobile
• Consumer
• Computing
• Automotive
• Medical
• Security
• Industrial
• Defense & aerospace

CIS technology

• LOGIC / CIS
• FSI / BSI / TSV / HYBRID / MULTI
• 32 / 45 / 65 / 90 / 110 / 150 / 180nm

NIR & 3D imaging

• Revenue
• Shipment
• Wafer production
• Technology penetration

CIS supply

• Wafer production
• Wafer capacity

CIS players

• Sony details
• Samsung details
• Omnivision details
• STMicroelectronics details
• onsemi details
• SK hynix details
• GalaxyCore details
• SmartSens details

Conclusion

Foundry profiles

The CMOS image sensor market is back to growth

The CIS market is back on a growth track, and not solely driven by mobile. Computing, security, automotive, and industrial markets are all headed north as well, and we expect 9% YoY growth in 2022. The importance of image and video capture has never been greater across so many applications. The embroilment of artificial intelligence (AI), either to enhance or analyze images, is fueling the CIS industry with renewed use-cases and customer interest. In 2019 and 2020, accumulated inventories created a temporary bubble-burst scenario which is now being cleared. Despite headwinds such as shortages, raw material inflation, and the Ukrainian war uncertainties, the semiconductor industry has become an economic beacon for industrial economies. In becoming a significant segment of semiconductors, CMOS image sensor products have also become a fundamental commodity.

Competition is still technology-driven

Technology is back at the center of the CIS competition, because Samsung and Omnivision have closed the gap with Sony regarding the ability to deliver stacked image sensors. The stacking technology allows the manufacturing of high-resolution image sensors in tiny camera packages that are ideally suited for mobile and consumer applications. This involves the manufacturing of image sensor wafers and logic wafers separately, which are then stacked and connected at the micrometer level. A logic wafer technology race has therefore been unleashed. This node race has gone down to 22nm and 17nm, raising the cost of manufacturing. The reignited pixel size race is allowing for image sensors beyond the 100Mp mark. New types of sensors such as iToF, d-ToF, event-based, and quantum are igniting passionate debates about the future of imaging and sensing. The future of image sensors is evolving extremely rapidly.

An ecosystem more vivid than ever

The market field is slightly more open than 3 – 5 years ago, when Sony was the overarching player. We currently observe a more diversified offer proposition from the largest CIS players able to compete in high volume: Sony, Samsung, Omnivision, STMicroelectronics, SK hynix, and Galaxycore. The consequence is a stabilization of the average selling price, which we expect to remain relatively steady due to customer appetite for larger, high-quality image sensors. The equilibrium between the established leaders, Sony and Samsung, and the rising Chinese companies Omnivision and Galaxycore, will highly depend on the U.S.-versus-China trade dispute situation. The large investments in new capacity will help, but the situation for 200mm products remains under heavy constraints.

Sony, Samsung, Omnivision, STM, Onsemi, SK Hynix, Galaxycore, Smartsens, Gpixel, Canon, Panasonic, BYD, TSMC, HLMC, SMIC, TPSCo, DB Hitek, GlobalFoundries, XMC, X-FAB, Jiangsu CAS-IGBT, HHGrace, Nexchip and more.