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“Weak results last year signal the beginning of what is expected to be a three-year period of declining to stagnant growth for semiconductor revenues,” said Dale Ford, vice president and chief analyst at IHS Technology, in a press statement. “Anemic end-market demand in the major segments of wireless communications, data processing and consumer electronics will hobble semiconductor growth during this time.” Ford said the expected multi-year weakness in the semiconductor market will begin to reverse around 2020 to 2022 when “new products will come to market that will enable a significant level of growth in semiconductor revenues.” Those new products are more likely to have a digital flavor, according to Dale, in a recent interview. “What I see is a triumvirate of technologies that are developing and which will reach critical mass in that time frame to drive the next wave of growth,” Ford said. “The triumvirate, no surprises, is IoT, the Cloud and 5G. We all know about them and we are seeing shipments already but the real critical mass if you look at the timeline and the development profiles of those three, is projected to be achieved in that 2020 to 2022 timeframe.”