GF, Samsung Gain in Foundry Rankings
By Mark LaPedus
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) is expected to remain the world’s leading foundry in terms of sales in 2012, according to the new and projected rankings from IC Insights.
But GlobalFoundries is expected to jump from third in 2011 to second place in the rankings in 2012, surpassing Taiwan’s United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC), according to the firm.
For the second year in a row, Samsung is expected to be ranked as the fourth largest IC foundry. IC Insights believes that the company will challenge UMC for the number three spot in the rankings in 2013.
Samsung makes application processors on a foundry basis for Apple. It is estimated that Samung’s capacity dedicated to its IC foundry business reached 130,000 300mm wafers per month in mid-2012. Using an average revenue per wafer figure of $2,500, Samsung currently has the potential to produce annual IC foundry sales of about $3.9 billion, according to the firm.
Samsung’s IC foundry sales are forecast to jump by 54% in 2012, which would make it the fastest growing top-12 IC foundry this year. Moreover, Apple’s 2012 share of Samsung’s total foundry sales is expected to be 85%.
In the rankings, SMIC is projected to be in fifth place in 2012, followed by TowerJazz, Grace/HHNEC, Vanguard, Dongbu, IBM, Win and Magnachip.
In total, the top 12 foundries are expected to represent 89% of the total foundry sales (IDM and pure-play) in 2012. This share is eight points higher than the 81% figure the top 12 represented in 2009, according to the firm.
Tags: Dongbu, foundry, GlobalFoundries, Grace, HHNEC, IBM, Samsung, SMIC, TowerJazz, TSMC, UMC, Win