Samsung Electronics’ CIS demand forces semiconductor test industry to re-invest

Recently, the semiconductor testing industry plans to re-invest in production facilities in the second half of the year due to the growing demand for CMOS image sensors (CIS) from Samsung Electronics.

According to the report, Samsung is known to have supported the investment of a second facility to test companies while increasing CIS supply. Currently, Samsung Electronics’ first CIS test vendor is Tesna, and the second vendor is LB Semicon.

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These test companies have been investing in new facilities for several years, so Samsung Electronics’ CIS test volume has increased significantly this year.  Moreover, image sensors are being used not only in consumer products such as smartphones, tablets, and PCs but also in autonomous vehicles and Internet of Things (IoT) related fields. In particular, as the number of camera image sensors per smartphone has recently increased to four, demand is growing structurally.

Samsung supplies CIS to smartphone cameras such as Galaxy, Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi. In order to increase CIS production, Samsung Electronics converted some of its DRAM production facilities into CIS production facilities last year. It also signed a contract with UMC for a 28-nm process image sensor foundry earlier this year.

Samsung started the mass production of image sensors in 2002, is narrowing the market share gap with Sony, the industry leader, every year. According to market researcher Omdia, Sony’s market share fell from 52.7% in 2019 to 47.9% in 2020. On the other hand, Samsung Electronics, in second place, is catching up sharply, rising about 2% from 17.6% in 2019 to 19.6% in 2020.

According to Yole Development, a market research firm, the CIS market is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 5.4% from 2021 to 2026, and the market size is expected to increase to $28.4 billion (32.8 trillion won) by 2026. In particular, the market is expected to grow by 9% next year to $23.3 billion (26,322 billion won).

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