According to Gartner Inc, the global semiconductor foundry market reached $34.6 billion in 2012, registering a growth of 16.2 per cent over 2011.
The market was led by TSMC, followed by GlobalFoundries. Another player UMC lost market share in the year 2012 due to reduced wafer shipments. Samsung registered 175.5 per cent growth in 2012 with increased use of wafers by Apple?s A6 and A6X chips.
Samuel Wang, research vice-president, Gartner, says, ?2012 was the first year in which the semiconductor revenue for mobile devices surpassed that of PCs and notebooks.?
Wang, adds, ?It also marked the first year in which 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.?
The research firm attributes the increase in the foundry business to the restocking of inventory by customers, along with the increased demand for smartphones, which requires wafers for advanced technology.
According to Gartner, in the second half of 2012, foundries registered encouraging growth on account of increased demand for 40 nm wafers for low-cost smartphones in China and other emerging countries. Further, foundries with sufficient wafer capacity and a good yield of 40 nm and 28 nm technologies have registred robust revenue growth.
Gartner points out that besides the increased shipment of advanced nodes, there were market share shifts in the more mature nodes in 2012. A few of the foundries reported near-record-high shipments of wafers of 65 nm to 0.18 micron serving power management integrated circuits, high voltage, embedded flash, complementary metal-oxide semiconductor image sensors and micro-electromechanical systems. The market share gain was due to the continuous improvement of device performance and cost savings as a result of process tuning of the legacy process nodes.
According to Gartner, in 2012, majority of foundries reported an increase in revenue from fabless customers. However, the percentage of revenue contribution by integrated device manufacturer customers was flat, indicating that the chips for mobile devices have been supplied primarily by the fabless companies.
