New capabilities inside modern television sets will create an explosion in the semiconductor market for televisions as TV are poised to add features such as wireless networking, Internet connectivity, and the ability to tap into, and run, applications made specifically for the living room screen. According to iSupply, the market for semiconductors in television sets well explode to $12.2 billion, up about $3 billion from this year.
Falling prices of LCD panels as well as demand for new features will set the pace for growth. An analyst from iSupply says that we’ll begin to see new components being added to the mix, including “image processors, power management chips and light-emitting diodes,” giving rise to a lot of smaller, venture-backed chipmakers to enter the market.
One such player is SiBeam Inc., a company that designs chips for televisions to connect to other high definition equipment, such as camcorders and smartphones.
Just as we’ve seen an explosion in the smartphone chip market, from NVIDIA Tegra’s offerings, Apple’s A4 chips, Samsung Hummingbird, Snapdragon, and others, the television market will be poised for similar growth as televisions gain more power and features beyond its traditional role as a receiver of broadcast signals.
We’ll have to see what features and innovations get added to televisions over time. At a recent Samsung Thinnovation conference hosted in Silicon Valley this summer, Samsung has stated that the pace of innovation and change in the television market is faster than its ever been. Traditionally, with TVs, upgrades happened at a slow pace, but new enhancements in the market–such as 3D technologies, thinness, and higher definition–has led to consumers upgrading their television at a more rapid pace.
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