European chip giant STMicroelectronics continues to hold the lead in the analogue ASSP market, as 2006 is poised to be a growth year for analogue ASSP players, according to market researcher Databeans.

The market research firm's study on the analogue ASSP market shows that ST held 20 per cent of the 2005 $20.2bn market, followed by fellow European chipmaker Infineon Technologies with 14 per cent of the market.

Europe's Philips Semiconductors and US chipmaker Texas Instruments are tied for third place in the market with 12 per cent share each, according to Databeans.

Nearly 90 per cent of ST's analogue revenue comes from products used specifically in handsets, vehicles, consumer electronics, and embedded storage, the market researcher said. Overall, handset revenue alone constitutes 32 per cent of overall analogue ASSP revenue, according to Databeans.

Meanwhile, 2006 should provide revenue growth opportunities for ST, along with other handset baseband, processor, and power management chip providers, as 3G production continues to escalate, the market researcher said. It estimates that this segment of the wireless chip industry will generate $7.3bn in revenue for this year.

For number two analogue ASSP player Infineon, its wireless handset revenue constitutes 34 per cent of its overall analogue revenue, according to Databeans.

Its current product offering serves the low-end and 2G handset space, but the company roadmap has set the goal of recognising revenue from 3G platforms by Q3 of this year, the market researcher noted.

Furthermore, the impending separation of Infineon's DRAM business will consolidate business segments, and analogue will become the largest contributing business segment, accounting for more than half the company revenue, Databeans observed. In 2005, memory products accounted for over 40 per cent of Infineon's sales.

As for the rest of the top five, Freescale has the largest contribution to total analogue revenue with 49 per cent, followed by Philips with 44 per cent, and TI with 19 per cent. TI's wireless handset analogue revenue, combined with its massive handset DSP sales, constituted 41 per cent of that company's total semiconductor revenue for 2005, the market researcher noted.

www.databeans.net