U.S. Leads Electronics Design Growth as Activity Rises Worldwide

The Commodity IQ Design Index rose for the fourth consecutive month in August, with global growth driven by a surge in U.S. processor design activity as companies develop new chips to keep pace in the generative AI race.

Using a three-month rolling average, global activity in August for all components tracked by the Commodity IQ Design Index increased by 12% compared to August 2023. Design activity has now risen on a year-over-year basis since May, based on the rolling average. 

The Americas Region Driving Global Increase of Design Activity

Worldwide demand actions in August rose 12.6% sequentially to reach 109.7, up from 97.4 in July. Following a dip into negative territory in July, sourcing activity rose above the baseline again in August, indicating that demand increased.

The Americas attained the fastest growth of all global regions, with the Commodity IQ Design Index for the geography rising by 14% sequentially and by 11% year over year. Within the Americas region, the U.S. drove the increase, with the country attaining a 17% month-over-month increase in design actions.

For the Americas, the highly volatile logic segment experienced the largest month-to-month increase, with a 90% rise. However, the microcontroller (MCU) and processor market stood out with the second-largest growth, at 22%. U.S.-based semiconductor firms are working furiously to develop new AI acceleration processors for data centers to keep pace in the generative AI race, spurring the robust increase in design activities.

The Need For (Processing) Speed

According to a Commodity IQ projection, global revenue for data center AI processors, including GPUs, FPGAs, ASICs, and ASSPs, is set to rise by 37% in 2023. With a new surge in demand for powerful AI processing capabilities triggered by the success of ChatGPT, chip companies focused on the market are reaping the rewards.

Leading data-center AI processor vendor Nvidia recently announced blockbuster results for its fiscal Q2, with record revenue of $13.51 billion, up 88% compared to Q1, and a 101% rise from a year ago. Processor intellectual property (IP) firm Arm achieved the biggest IPO in two years in September.

The market is focused on Arm’s AI chip offerings, including its Ethos neural processing units, Mali GPUs, and even some of its CPUs, which are powerful enough to conduct machine learning inference in edge applications like mobile phones.

With the successful examples set by Nvidia and Arm, U.S. chip companies focus on developing cutting-edge designs for AI accelerators, propelling growth in worldwide design actions.