Yole on CIS Trends

 Yole Developpement report "The CIS industry overheated in 2019 reaching $19.3B. Are we heading to a soft landing in 2020-2021?" says:

"At the top of the market, player trajectories are a consequence of the smartphone market situation. Sony and Samsung are first and second and Omnivision third. ST Microelectronics is in fourth position, making a comeback thanks to its near infrared (NIR) sensing imagers for Apple handsets and tablets. Sony and Samsung have subsequently updated their product portfolio in line with the 3D sensing trend. Indirect Timeof-Flight (iToF) and direct Time-of-Flight (dToF) arrays are the immediate response, showing the great technical innovation driving those top players.

On the other side of the market, emerging players to watch are coming from China. Omnivision has been acquired by Will Semiconductor, the Shanghai-based company. Two other Chinese players, Galaxycore 

and Smartsens, are also experiencing thriving growth. They have mostly benefited from their domestic market ecosystem in mobile and security cameras. Their growth is currently fueled by massive capital injections at time of greater US sanctions limiting their access to technology. CIS might be among the first semiconductor product categories in which China could become technologically independent since the required wafer foundries are widely available in mainland China.

The next era will involve robotics, Augmented Reality (AR) and smart Internet of Things (IoT). All of these are markets in which Chinese companies are well positioned. The ranking of CIS players will eventually change along these new lines."