Over the past two years, the most frequently heard terms in the analog chip industry have been "inventory digestion" and "price pressure." However, since last year, voices from original manufacturers regarding price adjustments have gradually increased. Entering this year, manufacturers such as TI and ADI have continuously sent signals of price hikes, prolonged lead times, and tightening supply. Meanwhile, AI data centers are driving more demand from GPUs and HBM all the way down to analog chip segments such as PMICs (Power Management ICs) and signal chains.
So, has the analog chip industry truly entered a new prosperity cycle? Judging from the financial reports of original manufacturers, inventory changes, and frontline feedback from the spot market, has the analog chip market truly experienced a comprehensive recovery, or are only certain segments heating up first?
01. Global Analog Chips: Collective Growth Among 9 Major Manufacturers
Based on the latest quarterly performance, the nine major global analog and mixed-signal chip manufacturers—TI, ADI, ST, Infineon, NXP, onsemi, Microchip, Renesas, and MPS—have all achieved year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter revenue growth.
Among them, the year-over-year growth rates of MPS and ADI are particularly prominent. TI, ST, and NXP have also further accelerated on the basis of double-digit growth in the previous quarter. Demand from industrial, automotive, and AI data center sectors jointly supports this round of growth.
Compared to the two traditional demand lines of automotive and industrial, AI and data centers are emerging as the most obvious new incremental drivers in this round of analog chip recovery.
The most typical example is MPS. In the second quarter of 2026, MPS's enterprise data center business revenue reached USD 380.6 million, a year-over-year increase of 164.3% and a quarter-over-quarter increase of 44.8%. The revenue share also rose from 32.7% in the previous quarter to 38.8%. The company stated that this growth mainly comes from the increased demand for power management solutions in AI and server applications. In other words, the enterprise data center business alone contributed nearly 40% of MPS's revenue for the quarter.
ADI's data is also very clear. In the third fiscal quarter of FY2026, the company's total revenue increased by 40% year-over-year, of which industrial business revenue was USD 1.972 billion, a year-over-year increase of 53%; communications business revenue was USD 655 million, a year-over-year increase of 84%. ADI further pointed out in its financial report that the growth was mainly driven by data centers and industrial sectors. In contrast, automotive business grew by 16% year-over-year, and consumer business grew by 6%, showing that the elasticity of data center-related demand is significantly higher.
Although TI did not separately disclose the revenue scale of its data center business, its total revenue in the second quarter of 2026 increased by 23% year-over-year and 13% quarter-over-quarter. The company stated that the broad growth this quarter was driven by industrial, data center, and automotive sectors. In other words, in TI's growth structure, data centers have joined industrial and automotive as standout end markets.
The common growth highlights for both are industrial and data centers. ADI's most outstanding performance lies in its industrial and communications businesses. TI emphasizes the simultaneous improvement across its multiple end markets, with the automotive sector shifting from weak to strong being a new change this quarter.
Infineon set a quarterly revenue record of EUR 4.172 billion in the third fiscal quarter of FY2026 and stated that AI data center power solutions continue to maintain very high demand, serving as the company's most critical growth driver at present. Meanwhile, Infineon also revealed that multi-year capacity booking agreements with AI customers, which have been signed or are under negotiation, have reached a cumulative revenue scale in the high single-digit billions of euros.
Looking at specific product lines, the analog business itself is also improving.
In addition to TI's analog chip business growing by 26% year-over-year in the second quarter, Microchip's latest quarterly analog product line revenue increased by 29.9% year-over-year; ST's analog, MEMS, and sensor businesses also grew by approximately 26% year-over-year. However, there is still differentiation among different manufacturers. Onsemi's analog and mixed-signal business still declined by 2% year-over-year in the same period, while AI data centers have become the company's fastest-growing business.
This round of analog chip recovery differs from the past, which was more driven by automotive and industrial sectors. Automotive and industrial remain the fundamental base, but the new incremental demand brought by AI servers—such as power management, signal chains, isolation, and clocking—is becoming a critical variable widening the growth rate gap among various companies.
As the two most representative companies in the global analog chip industry, the performance of TI and ADI is particularly worth paying attention to.
TI's revenue in the second quarter of 2026 reached USD 5.46 billion. Notably, TI was already in the recovery stage in the same period last year, with revenue growing by 16% year-over-year. On this basis, Q2 this year still achieved a 23% year-over-year growth and a 13% quarter-over-quarter growth, indicating that demand recovery is further accelerating.
ADI's growth is even faster. In the third fiscal quarter of FY2026 ended August 1, ADI achieved a revenue of USD 4.022 billion, a year-over-year increase of 40% and a quarter-over-quarter increase of approximately 11%. Among them, data centers already account for about 80% of the communications business, and related optical communications and power businesses have both achieved more than doubled growth year-over-year. Overall, industrial and data centers remain ADI's primary growth engines at present.
If revenue growth reflects that demand is returning, then inventory changes can better illustrate where this round of the analog chip cycle has reached.
Over the past few years, one of the biggest keywords in the analog chip industry has been "inventory digestion." However, judging from the latest data, this round of inventory digestion has entered its second half.
As of Q2 2026, TI's inventory stood at USD 4.605 billion, and inventory days have decreased from 222 days at the end of 2025 to 196 days. CEO Haviv Ilan explained that demand changed rapidly in the second quarter, and the best way to cope with such sudden short-term demand is to rely on inventory, a strategy that "indeed helped the company" in Q2. Meanwhile, TI is also increasing factory load to prepare for subsequent demand. TI specifically mentioned that the reason it was able to seize opportunities in markets such as data centers is precisely because it prepared inventory and capacity in advance.
ADI's latest inventory situation shows that inventory increased by USD 83 million quarter-over-quarter to a historical high, while inventory days actually dropped to 156 days, and channel inventory is also below the long-term target of 6-7 weeks. Management stated that customer inventory remains at a relatively low level at present, and no obvious inventory replenishment behavior has been seen yet. However, the company is proactively increasing strategic bare die inventory and channel inventory to cope with continuously accelerating demand.
Looking at these two most representative analog chip manufacturers, the current industry inventory status is significantly different from the past two years: on one hand, inventory turnover is accelerating, and on the other hand, original manufacturers are beginning to proactively stock up for growth. The analog chip industry is gradually shifting from the "inventory digestion" stage to a new stage of "demand recovery + proactive stocking."
02. Original Manufacturers Are Raising Prices, What About the Spot Market?
Since August, the popularity of analog chips on chip trading platforms has significantly heated up. Among them, TI appears most widely. Brands such as ADI, ST, onsemi, and Renesas also have multiple products entering the hot lists, and some power chips from Infineon are also beginning to attract attention.
As the two most representative manufacturers in the global analog chip market, the demand changes of TI and ADI can often reflect the current temperature of the analog chip market to a certain extent.
We recently inquired about the situation from multiple spot market practitioners and found that although there are divergences on "whether demand has significantly expanded," there are two consistent feelings: first, there is currently demand for TI and ADI; second, the supply of some models is tight, and price fluctuations are also more obvious than before.
On the ADI side, a channel distributor stated that business has been good since last year. The real problem is not a lack of demand, but delivery. Some components have been in continuous shortage for a long time. Currently, original manufacturers have strict controls, and order scheduling and delivery are not smooth, so they are now more cautious in accepting orders.
He believes that "goods are easy to sell once they arrive," but if the goods are delayed, even strong demand is hard to convert into transactions. For traders who specialize in ADI, shortages are not necessarily a completely good thing. Although some scarce models may increase the profit per transaction, the overall transaction amount may instead shrink due to the decline in shippable volume.
Another practitioner who has been dealing with ADI spot market for a long time also mentioned that current ADI demand is not weak, and there is even a feeling of "selling one pack means one less pack in stock." End customers in industrial, medical, and automotive sectors all have demand, and some models that were not easy to sell in the past have now become "hotcakes." However, general-purpose components still face obvious price competition, and not all products are rising in price.
Regarding specific products, a practitioner mentioned, "ADI's LT series has always been very popular and has seen the most outrageous price hikes. Other series are also rising, but not that exaggerated."
On the TI side, the recent market heating up is also relatively obvious. A practitioner handling TI orders stated that demand heat has significantly increased this month, lead times for many models are being prolonged, and the lead time for some components has already reached about 50 weeks.
However, within the same market, feelings are not entirely consistent.
Some practitioners also believe that the overall demand for TI and ADI is actually relatively stable at present, without any sudden explosion in a short period. What is truly obvious is that prices have become more unstable. For example, TI indeed has some individual models with huge price increases, but most products have only seen slight increases. At the same time, there are many cases of "chaotic pricing" in the market, and a considerable portion of inventory still belongs to "dead stock" that is hard to sell. Some even bluntly stated that ADI's overall demand can only be considered average.
This means that currently, TI and ADI are more like experiencing a structural market trend of "demand is not weak, supply is somewhat tight, and price fluctuations are increasing," rather than all components rising together and all demand exploding simultaneously.
And price hikes are further reinforcing this market expectation.
Since the beginning of this year, TI has implemented three rounds of clear price adjustments, taking effect in April, July, and October respectively; ADI has conducted two rounds of large-scale price adjustments, taking effect on February 1 and September 13 respectively.
Looking at the reasons for price hikes, TI's multiple rounds of price adjustments mainly point to rising supply chain costs and changes in the market environment, coupled with the recovery of demand in industrial control, automotive, and data centers. ADI has gradually shifted from being driven by "inflationary cost push" at the beginning of the year to being jointly driven by "strengthened demand, capacity expansion investments, and rising costs" in the second half of the year.
Meanwhile, pressure on the supply side is also becoming increasingly obvious.
As of the end of August, market reports from Fusion, Lianchuangjie, and others show that the lead times for many TI products have been prolonged to 20-48 weeks, with some models even longer. Among them, the quota shortage for MicroSiP micro system-in-package power modules (suffix -SILR) is particularly prominent. The market also rumors that in TI's new round of price adjustments in October, the price increases for TPS and UCC series related to AI server PMICs, as well as some high-speed signal chain products, have reached 15%-85%.
On the ADI side, the lead times for some scarce components have also been prolonged significantly. Market news shows that the lead time for the corresponding MPN of some precision Op-Amps (Operational Amplifiers) has exceeded 400 days.
Overall, TI and ADI currently still maintain a situation of not weak demand, somewhat tight supply for some parts, and increased price fluctuations. However, market differentiation remains obvious, with hot components being tight and general-purpose components still facing competition.
03. Conclusion
Looking at the guidance for the next quarter, the nine major overseas analog and mixed-signal chip manufacturers expect their revenues to continue growing quarter-over-quarter. Among them, MPS and Infineon show the most obvious increases, while TI, Microchip, ADI, and NXP also maintain growth. The gross margin or profit margin expectations of some companies are also improving synchronously.
Overall, AI data centers are bringing new incremental volume, and industrial and automotive sectors continue to recover, but the analog chip spot market still shows obvious differentiation. Hot components are tight, and some prices are rising, while general-purpose components are still in competition, and demand has not fully exploded. Compared to the comprehensive shortage in 2021, this round is more like a structural recovery.