Global semiconductor foundry biz grew by 16.2% in 2012, as per Gartner

While the semiconductor chip revenue in year 2012 has experienced negative growth in year 2012, the semiconductor chip foundry revenues in 2012 grew by 16.2% in 2012, as per latest estimates by Gartner. Gartner has reported worldwide semiconductor foundry market totaled $34.6 billion in 2012, a 16.2 percent increase from 2011. "2012 was the first year that the semiconductor revenue for mobile devices surpassed that of PCs and notebooks,” said Samuel Wang, research vice president at Gartner. "It also marked the first year that advanced technology for mobile applications drove the foundry revenue. Furthermore, 2012 saw not only major foundries improve the yield of 28 nanometer (nm) technology, but also many foundries fine-tuned the device performance of legacy nodes." TSMC ranked at the number one position due to the technology node lead it has taken over others. The fast growing Globalfoundries ranked 2nd. Gartner said "Strong performance on 32 nm yields and the availability of sub-45-nm wafer capacity at the Dresden, Germany, fabs allowed Globalfoundries to advance to the No. 2 position" The 3rd ranked UMC's market share decreased due to reduced wafer shipments, as per Gartner. Driven by the wafers consumed by Apple's A6 and A6X chips, Samsung moved up four spots to the No. 5 position with 175.5 percent growth in 2012, adds Gartner. Tabble *Samsung revenue inclu...