The excellent growth potential in emerging economies is also expected to drive the market.
TFT technology is investigated for use in microelectronic devices, X-ray detection, biochemical sensing, and chemical sensing. The technology offers advantages such as low power consumption, low cost, better response time, and faster refresh rate. Most of the companies are in the process to develop organic TFT technology, which makes it possible to have flexible display surfaces.
Key Market Trends
Consumer Electronics Expected to Have Significant Growth
Thin film transistor (TFT) technology is widely used in flat-panel displays found in computers, televisions, smartphones, and laptops. The technology is revolutionizing the video system, enabling the manufacture of large-dimension flat-panels. For example, 164-inch diagonal dimension substrates are used for TFT LCD fabrication. Stability of processes for large-scale fabrication, an improved semiconductor layer and the development of processing equipment to manufacture large devices are advancing thin film transistor technology.
There is a decline in the open-cell LCD TV panel prices including 4K UHD TV panels, and price erosion of smartphone display panel is expected to increase revenue and maintain the market in a full state, during the forecast period. New applications in non-LCD applications are now being developed. This coupled with the ongoing research may increase the number of opportunities for products using TFT in their core. These application sub-segments are expected to boost the demand in the market during the forecast period.
Asia-Pacific Expected to Witness Significant Growth
Asia-Pacific is one of the most significant markets for thin film transistor owing to the massively growing demand for consumer electronics, and also the semiconductor manufacturing industry is booming in the region. The region is also a global manufacturing hub for consumer electronics, especially smartphones and LCDs which are the major consumers of the technology. Additionally, the regional governments are also increasingly regulating policies which are further helping in the studied market growth. Also more and more regional SMEs manufacturers are penetrating into the manufacturing business of thin film transistors which is expected to bring down the overall cost and increase the innovations.
Demand for consumer goods such as televisions, monitor, smartphones, laptops and other consumer goods with displays is a rise in Asia-Pacific, which in turn, is fueling the demand for TFTs in this regional market. Growth in this region is the highest among all geographic regions considered. Increase in the net disposable income of consumers in this region, along with the declining price of the finished products using TFTs has increased the demand for thin-film transistors in the region. End products from application segment LCD have demand originating from the middle-class income group population. Presence of crucial display manufacturers in this region is also assisting in products to be offered at competitive prices.
Competitive Landscape
The thin film transistor market is fragmented without many dominant players present in the market. Efforts are being taken by many companies to upgrade their research and development activities to analyze further applications that are expected to generate profitable growth opportunities for the market.
