August 2, 2010 – A strong rebound in the memory sector over the past few quarters has helped key players push up the ranks of top suppliers, according to new data from IC Insights. Also represented well are key semiconductor foundries.

Overall, the top 20 semiconductor companies posted sales just over $100B in 1H10. And even if sales are flat in 2H10 (McClean says they’ll be a little better than that; the SIA says flat indeed), total sales will top $204B, which would be ~29% growth.

Most memory suppliers showed double-digit growth in 2Q10 from the year-opening period. Both DRAM and NAND flash markets are strong enough that several firms (Hynix, Micron, Elpida) closed 1H10 just $1B away from their entire 2009 totals, with an entire half-year to go, including the seasonal holiday-selling peak. All the memory suppliers except Samsung climbed the rankings ladder, and even Samsung gained ground on perennial top-seller Intel — it’s more than halved a 52% sales gap in 2009 to just 21% so far in 2010.

Also doing well in 1H10 were top semiconductor foundries TSMC and UMC, each with growth in the teens (and UMC had the list’s biggest 2Q-1Q leap, six spots). Panasonic ($1830M) and Nvidia ($1804M) finished just outside the final top-20 spots.

Note that the listing for "Renesas" combines its sales with NEC from 2009 and 1Q10, though they didn’t officially merge until April of this year.

Top 20 semiconductor sales leaders in US $M, through 1H10. * Merged entity of Renesas + NEC. **Foundry. ***Fabless. (Source: IC Insights, company reports)