TSMC holds more than 50% share of top
ten semiconductor foundries
IC Insights' latest semiconductor foundry service providers
ranking lists TSMC at the top with a market share of 52%
of the top ten semiconductor foundries' total revenue. The
new player GlobalFoudries by acquiring Singapore based Charrtered
is expected to take larger share in 2010.
The highlights of the IC Insight's 2010 report are:
IC Insights ranking of the leading IC foundries for 2009
includes both the pure-play and IDM foundries. Among the
top 17 foundry companies listed for 2009, 11 are based in
the Asia-Pacific region, four are based in the U.S., and
two are headquartered in Europe.
In 2009, TSMC topped the list of foundries with $9.0 billion
in sales. TSMC's sales were about 3X that of UMC, which
in turn had more than the combined foundry sales of Chartered
and SMIC in 2009. GlobalFoundries, the new foundry formed
by spinning off AMD's wafer fabs, "officially"
started operations in March 2009. In ten months of operation,
it generated $1.1 billion in sales making it the fourth-largest
foundry in 2009. There were only four IDM foundries on the
list. IBM, the largest IDM foundry in the world, had only
about 4% of the 2009 foundry sales volume of industry leader
TSMC.
Overall, the foundry business declined 10% in 2009, the
same percentage as the overall IC industry. But IC Insights
forecasts the 2010 foundry market to jump 24% to $26.8 billion.
Between 2009 and 2014, the foundry market is forecast to
grow at an average annual rate of 13%, reaching $40.6 billion
in 2014.
IC Insights believes the foundry business is still in the
midst of its consolidation phase. Tower acquired Jazz in
2008 and the combined sales propelled Tower to the 12th
largest foundry in the world in 2009 (and the only foundry
to post an increase in sales). In April of 2009, UMC stated
that it intended to acquire Chinese foundry He Jian by purchasing
the remaining 85% of the foundry that it did not already
own for approximately $285 million. However, it was reported
in mid-August of 2009 that the deal was in jeopardy because
of Taiwanese government restrictions on the number of fabs
that Taiwanese companies could operate in China. And, AMD
spin-off GlobalFoundries acquired Chartered in 4Q09. Together,
GlobalFoundries and Chartered's sales would have amounted
to over $2.6 billion in 2009, enough to put the combined
company's sales only 8% behind second-ranked UMC. Overall,
IC Insights expects more mergers and acquisitions in the
foundry business over the next few years with some of the
Chinese foundries being some of the more likely candidates.
Among pure-play foundry players, the "Big 4"
(TSMC, UMC, Chartered, and SMIC) have dominated sales over
the past seven years. In 2009, GlobalFoundries was included
as a major player and the "Big 4" became the "Big
5." However, since Chartered was purchased by GlobalFoundries
in 4Q09, and will be incorporated into GlobalFoundries sales
in 2010 and beyond, the pure-play foundry industry will
revert back to describing the major players as the "Big
4" (TSMC, UMC, SMIC, and GlobalFoundries) once again.
In 2009, the "Big 5" companies held an imposing
82% share of the total worldwide pure-play IC foundry market.
Moreover, IC Insights believes that the top pure-play foundry
companies will continue to gain marketshare over the next
five years.
Here is the ranking table:
| Company |
Sale revenue in 2009 in million US$ |
| TSMC |
8989 |
| UMC |
2815 |
| Chartered (Now acuqired by GlobalFoundries) |
1540 |
| GlobalFoundries |
1101 |
| SMIC |
1075 |
| Dongbu |
395 |
| Vanguard |
382 |
| IBM |
335 |
| Samsung |
325 |
| Grace |
310 |
| He Jian |
305 |
| Tower |
292 |
| HHNEC |
290 |
| SSMC |
280 |
| TI |
250 |
| X-Fab |
223 |
| MagnaChip |
220 |
