Advanced Television

Silicon TV tuners boost semiconductor vendors

October 24, 2013

MRG, an SNL Kagan company, has released its latest Silicon TV Tuners report.

Silicon TV tuners have substantially replaced traditional MO-PLL “can” types of tuners. The “up-take” curve for silicon TV tuners still has strong unit shipment growth, especially in regions like Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. MRG expects that the worldwide annual value of this market will remain flat to slightly negative over the coming years, hovering around the $500 million per year level. The two categories of utmost interest to silicon vendors in this space are TV sets and satellite STBs. An important growth market for specialised wide-spectrum tuners is emerging as cable TV operators rollout digital terminal adapters (DTAs) with fast-channel-change technology, and whole-home DVR gateways ramp up in volume.

The extremely high volumes of TVs and STBs being shipped require stable silicon suppliers with the financial resources to continue making ongoing investments in product development and silicon process technology. These stringent requirements have caused a dramatic shake-out in the silicon TV tuner industry. Only a handful of key players remain, and they dominate the market. Silicon Labs, NXP, MaxLinear, Sony, CrestaTech, Siano and their ilk are now in a pitched battle to manage market share as unit shipments go up but ASPs level off or go down.

“The worldwide market for silicon TV tuners is analogous to the worldwide market for rotating hard disk drives (HDDs). It’s a high-volume component business that sells to very demanding companies that manufacture a complex end-use product” explains Gerry Kaufhold, contributing analyst at MRG. “Manufacturing volumes for silicon TV tuners are staggering, the growth rates are reasonable, but the annual value is relatively flat. It’s a highly competitive market with just a few key players jockeying for position and scrambling to gain market share” Kaufhold adds.

Worldwide shipments of silicon TV tuners into all four end-use product categories (cable, satellite and DTT STBs and TVs) is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.8 per cent through 2017. Silicon TV tuners have been in high-volume shipments into TV sets since late 2009. In 2013, the industry is shipping mature fourth generation products, and industry leaders are already ramping up fifth generation products.

This report updates the players and market for silicon TV tuners as they are used in four end-use product categories. Presented are forecast shipments of silicon TV tuners into six regions for the four end-use product categories.

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