The present paper investigates the global instability mechanisms of arrayed-cellular growth with asymptotic approach. We find that the system involves two types of global instability mechanisms: the low frequency (LF) instability and the global oscillatory (GTW) instability. Based on these results, the selection conditions for the limiting steady arrayed cellular and dendritic pattern formation are proposed. Crown Copyright (c) 2010 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.