LDDI Prices Rising

The market for large display driver ICs (LDDIs) has tightened, says TrendForce, as foundries shifted their 8 inch capacity to other products.

This transformed a 3.3% supply surplus in 2019 to a 1.7%  surplus in 2020 and resulted in 20-30% q-o-q price increases in H2.

As well as foundry price increases, assembly capacity has been insufficient and gold used for bump connectors has increased in price.

Nexchip, a foundry based in Hefei, China, is expanding its 12-inch wafer capacities in response to LDDI market demand, but total supply will not undergo a noticeable increase until 2H21 at the earliest.

LDDI supply is thus likely to rise slightly in 2021 with a 1.8% growth y-o-y while the move to larger panels will increase demand for LDDIs by 2.5% y-o-y in 2022.

The supply surplus of LDDIs is expected to drop from 1.7% in 2020 down to 1.1% in 2021, with the supply crunch remaining unalleviated throughout the first three quarters of the year.