IDC: WW Enterprise Storage System Semiconductor Market to Grow to $1.3 billion by 2012

The worldwide enterprise storage system semiconductor market will grow to $1.3 billion by 2012, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.0%, according to new research from IDC. The semiconductor demands of the storage system market are compelling original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to move quickly to grab as much of the market as they can or face being shut out by enterprise customers.

"Unlike markets for networking-related silicon (e.g. Ethernet, xDSL), the storage system market experiences shorter time periods for selection, qualification testing, and installation," said Aileen Arcilla, senior research analyst for Semiconductors at IDC. "Semiconductor companies already playing in the slower moving storage mechanism, networking, or telecom markets thus view the market potential for storage system semiconductors as a rare complementary growth driver for their business."

However, the storage systems market opportunity for semiconductors will fluctuate throughout the forecast period, due to pricing pressures coupled with technological changes. IDC believes that the emergence of iSCSI and fibre channel-over-Ethernet (FcoE) products, as well as the growing need for SAS expanders/multiplexers and storage services processors, will be growth drivers. To capture a significant share of the storage system semiconductor market, semiconductor vendors should carefully watch the market dynamics among the following technologies: 10GE/iSCSI from a SAN perspective, FcoE, and SAS.

The IDC study, Worldwide Enterprise Storage System Semiconductor 2008-2012 Forecast (Doc #212357) examines application-specific standard products (ASSPs) and ASICs shipping into direct-attached storage (DAS), network-attached storage (NAS), and storage area networking (SAN) systems. A top-line forecast for the semiconductor components used within these storage system markets is segmented by key application markets for 2008-2012. Where applicable, disk interface details (parallel ATA, SCSI, and FC, serial ATA, and SAS) are also included.