Top 20 semiconductor vendors in 1Q2014

The top-20 semiconductor ranking in Q1 2014 is quite a mix of companies with different product focus. The ranking by IC Insights include three pure-play foundries (TSMC, GlobalFoundries, and UMC) and six fabless companies. It is interesting to note that the top four semiconductor suppliers all have different business models. Intel is essentially a pure-play IDM, Samsung a vertically integrated IC supplier, TSMC a pure-play foundry, and Qualcomm a fabless company, as observed by IC Insights. The further finding shared by IC Insights include: IC foundries are included in the top 20 ranking because IC Insights has always viewed the ranking as a top supplier list, not as a market share ranking, and realizes that in some cases semiconductor sales are double counted. With many of our clients being vendors to the semiconductor industry (supplying equipment, chemicals, gases, etc.), excluding large IC manufacturers like the foundries would leave significant “holes” in the list of top semiconductor suppliers. Foundries and fabless companies are clearly identified in Figure 1. In the April Update to The McClean Report, market share rankings of IC suppliers by product type were presented and foundries were excluded from these listings. It should be noted that not all foundry sales should be excluded when attempting to create marketshare data. For example, although Samsung ha...