The global semiconductor packaging materials market reached US$16.7 billion in 2017, according to a report by SEMI and TechSearch International. While slower growth of smartphones and personal computers - the industry's traditional drivers - is reducing material consumption, the slowdown was offset by strong unit growth in the cryptocurrency market in 2017 and early 2018.

Flip chip package shipments into the cryptocurrency market, while providing a windfall to many suppliers, are not expected to remain at high levels, the report said.

Despite growth in automotive electronics and high-performance computing, continuing price pressure and declining material consumption will constrain future material revenue growth to steady single-digits, with the materials market forecast to reach US$17.8 billion in 2021, the report indicated. IC leadframes, underfill, and copper wire are among the materials segments that will see single-digit unit volume growth through 2021.

Laminate substrate suppliers participating in the sale of flip chip substrates for cryptocurrency saw volume increases in 2017, but this segment continues to be battered by increased use of multi-die solutions and the shift to wafer-level packages (WLPs), including fan-out WLP, slowing growth. Wafer-level packaging (WLP) dielectrics and plating chemistry suppliers will experience stronger revenue growth as the adoption of advanced packaging continues, according to the report.

Over the next several years, advances in the semiconductor materials market will present a number of opportunities driven by trends including: continued adoption of FO-WLP; liquid crystal polymer (LCP) under consideration as a possible material option; adoption of low-cost package solutions such as MIS and other routable-QFN technologies; PPF QFN volumes rising with automotive applications; expansion of photoresist plating capability for selective plating of leadframes; thermally enhanced and high-voltage mold compounds for power and automotive devices; and thermally conductive die attach materials other than solder die attach for power applications.