Samsung blasts into top ten foundries list

7 May 2008 | 15:23 BST

By Sylvie Barak

SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS delivered 413 per cent revenue growth in chip production in 2007, according to researchers at IC Insights.

Only three of the top 14 foundries are not Asia- Pacific based, and the top four remain TSMC, UMC, Chartered, and SMIC.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) remained king of foundries, raking in almost $10 billion in sales in 2007. In fact, just to put its clear lead into perspective, the company’s sales were only 11 per cent lower than all the other companies in the top 14 put together.

UMC came in second place with sales of $3.8 billion, which is 2 per cent up on 2006. SMIC upped its sales by 6 per cent to steal Chartered’s previous third place position.

TSMC, UMC, Chartered, and SMIC, or as they are known in the foundry world, “The Big Four”, have been masters of the scene for over five straight years now. 2007 was no exception with the quartet racking up just over two-thirds (68%) of the $24.5 billion foundry market. All four are Pure Play foundries, who don’t flog their own brand of IC products, but do produce them for other companies. An astounding for 84 per cent of the total foundry market is based on this model.

The 16 per cent that accounts for the rest of the market goes to Integrated device manufacturer (IDM) foundries, who offer other companies foundry services whilst also selling their own designs of ICs. Prominent IDMs include IBM, NEC, TI, and Samsung, who even managed to make it into the top ten of IC Insights’ list of top foundry suppliers.

Not long after announcing plans to diversify itself, setting up a 300mm facility for foundry operations and helped along by a technology partnership with IBM and Chartered, Samsung Electronics has reaped a hefty reward with revenue growth reaching an impressive 413 per cent in 2007 from 2006. This translates into $385 million in revenues for 2007, up from a paltry $75 million in 2006.

European foundry, X-Fab, which merged with 1st Silicon in 2006, was the only non-Asia-Pacific pure-play foundry company in the top 14 group for 2007. µ

L’Inq
IC INSIGHTS

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