Category Archives: Semiconductors

SEMICON Korea 2018 opens at COEX in Seoul today with its largest-ever exhibition and an expected 50,000 attendees at the premier event for the Korean semiconductor and electronics manufacturing supply chain. January 31 to February 2, SEMICON Korea features a sold-out exhibition with 1,913 booths, the most in its history, 436 exhibitors from 20 countries, and forums on Smart Manufacturing and Smart Automotive, two key industry growth drivers.

SEMICON Korea kicks off with Korea, logging the highest semiconductor capital expenditures of any region in 2017, at the top of the semiconductor market. Last year, Korea-based Samsung and SK Hynix were ranked the number one and three semiconductor suppliers, respectively, and together accounted for more than 20 percent of total semiconductor revenue. Additionally, Samsung’s semiconductor investment totaled $27 billion in 2017 and is expected to reach $28 billion in 2018 – both records.

In a SEMICON Korea press conference this morning, SEMI, the global industry association representing more than 2,000 companies in the electronics manufacturing supply chain and organizer of the event, reported that strong semiconductor industry growth will continue. Dan Tracy, Senior Director Industry Research & Statistics of SEMI, revealed that2017 was a record-setting year with semiconductor revenues increasing more than 20 percent and equipment spending over 30 percent. Positive growth is expected in 2018, with high-performance computing, Internet of Things (IoT) and automotive as key drivers. In 2018, the Korea market is expected to win the largest share in equipment spending and remain the largest region in terms of installed 300mm capacity and memory production.

Highlights of SEMICON Korea:

  • At today’s opening ceremony, Ajit Manocha, SEMI president of CEO, and Yong-Han Lee, member of SEMI’s Board of Directors, will address the gathering before joining HD Cho, President of SEMI Korea; HK Kang, Chairman of SEMICON Korea STS Committee; Tetsuo Tuneishi, Chairman of SEMI Board; and Korean industry leaders to cut the ceremonial ribbon.
  • Four industry thought leaders – from Samsung Electronics, IBM, Xilinx and imec – will present keynote insights on the future of the global semiconductor industry, immediately following the opening ceremony.
  • SMART Automotive Forum – New at SEMICON Korea this year is the Smart Automotive Forum, highlighting the new market opportunities for semiconductors. The forum will explore how smart automobiles are changing the driving experience and examine how chips will power connected cars and autonomous driving systems. Close collaboration with semiconductor manufacturers is essential as automobile manufacturers expect to introduce fully autonomous cars before 2030.
  • SMART Manufacturing Forum – Top experts will share their insights on the latest trends and emerging technologies in Smart Manufacturing areas such as IoT, Cloud Computing, Big Data, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The experts will also examine how the industry can realize the promise of Smart Manufacturing through the adoption of new methods, systems and solutions.
  • The Industry Leadership Dinner, an exclusive VIP networking event tonight, will gather more than 450 global industry executives to connect and build relationships.
  • Through the Supplier Search Program, expanded this year to 90 meetings, eight of the world’s leading companies (Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, Intel, Micron, SONY, Toshiba and Lam Research) will look for new suppliers.
  • SEMICON Korea attracts top companies to connect with customers and decision makers and to demonstrate product and technology leadership. The exposition includes deep technical networking and business programs that give insight into the full Korean electronics manufacturing ecosystem.

SEMICON Korea 2018 is the leading semiconductor technology event for market trends and breaking technology developments, featuring technical forums, business programs and standards activities. The event is an opportunity to meet and learn from more 100 global experts.

 

SiFive, a provider of commercial RISC-V processor IP, today announced Shafy Eltoukhy as vice president of operations. Eltoukhy, a veteran of Microsemi and Intel, will lead SiFive’s DesignShare activities and ensure the smooth rollout of new Core IP, SoCs and services.

Over the course of his career, Eltoukhy has been awarded 24 patents, and is the author of more than 20 technical articles. He brings this expertise to SiFive with a goal to help the company expand its DesignShare program, which gives any SoC designer, inventor or maker the ability to harness the power of custom silicon with little to no upfront risk. Since its inception, companies including Analog Bits, eMemory, FlexLogix, Rambus, Think Silicon and UltraSoC have joined the DesignShare ecosystem. He will also help to coordinate SiFive’s fast-growing hardware and software engineering teams with key partners as the company launches new products and services.

“SiFive’s mission – to lower the barriers for innovation in the silicon industry – immediately resonated with me when presented with the opportunity to work with the team,” Eltoukhy said. “Knowing firsthand the challenges involved in bringing a new SoC to market, I immediately recognized SiFive’s ability to resolve the issues that customers and designers have faced for decades. I am thrilled to join the SiFive team and am honored to have the opportunity to help revolutionize the semiconductor industry.”

Eltoukhy brings three decades of experience to his role at SiFive, having most recently served as vice president and business unit manager for the analog mixed signal division at Microsemi. Earlier in his career, Eltoukhy was vice president of operations and technology at Open-Silicon, where he released to production over 150 ASIC and complex SoC products. He also served as Vice President of Technology at Lightspeed Semiconductor, where he joined the founding team that invented structured ASIC technology with a goal to simplify ASIC design cycle and reduce development cost. As Director of Technology Development at Actel Corporation (now Microsemi), he participated in the early development of the first and second generation of Antifuse FPGA products. He has also held senior engineering positions at semiconductor pioneers Intel and Fairchild. Eltoukhy holds a doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of Waterloo as well as master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Cairo University.

“We are thrilled to have someone with Shafy’s credentials join the SiFive executive team,” said Naveed Sherwani, CEO of SiFive. “His experience as a founder and leader of numerous startups is invaluable to SiFive as we strive to breathe new life into a stagnant industry. His perspective will benefit not only to SiFive but the semiconductor market writ large as we work to simplify the design process.”

efabless corporation, the world’s first crowd sourcing platform for electronics solutions, today announced Mike Noonen joined its advisory board.

Noonen, a creative entrepreneur well-known throughout the semiconductor industry, will work with efabless management to help shape and refine the commercialization strategy for its platform and marketplace. “Mike shares the efabless vision of a connected community and marketplace that will bring open innovation to electronics and enable custom solutions for IoT devices,” says Mike Wishart, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of efabless.

“Mike was instrumental in kicking off the successful efabless and Dialog Semiconductor Go Configure Design Challenge Series where the global community created designs for Dialog’s unique Configurable Mixed Signal IC,” adds Mohamed Kassem, efabless co-founder and chief technical officer. “We are thrilled that he has joined our advisory board,”

“efabless brings the proven benefits of crowd sourcing and connected community to the semiconductor industry, something that is welcome and long overdue,” notes Noonen. “It’s only a matter of time before the global efabless on-line community invigorates innovation and opens large new market opportunities. I am excited and delighted to be part of it.”

In addition to efabless, Noonen currently serves as an advisor or a member of the board of directors for a range of companies, including Maja Systems, Mythic AI, Qromis Technology and LocatorX.

Most recently, he was vice president of sales, marketing and business development for Silego Technology, now Dialog Semiconductor, and Ambiq Micro’s CEO and a member of the board directors. Noonen was founder and chairman of Silicon Catalyst, the world’s first incubator for semiconductor start-ups. At GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Noonen was executive vice president of global products, quality, design, sales and marketing. While at GLOBALFOUNDRIES, he was elected to the Global Semiconductor Alliance Board of Directors.

Prior experience includes senior executive positions at NXP Semiconductors, National Semiconductor (now Texas Instruments), Cisco Systems and 8×8. He began his career as a field applications engineer teaching mixed-signal IC design at NCR Microelectronics.

Noonen was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colo., and serves on its College of Engineering Advisory Board. In 2012, he was named the College of Engineering Distinguished Alumni of the Year.

 

Worldwide shipments of devices — PCs, tablets and mobile phones — totaled 2.28 billion units in 2017, according to Gartner, Inc. Shipments are on course to reach 2.32 billion units in 2018, an increase of 2.1 percent.

Two markets will drive overall growth in device shipments in 2018. First is the mobile phone market, led by the high-end smartphone segment. Second is the premium ultramobile market, where thin and light Apple and Microsoft Windows 10 devices are stimulating higher demand.

“Consumers have many technologies to choose from, which poses two main challenges for vendors. The first is to compete for wallet share, given how many devices consumers own. The second is to deliver value and maintain relevance — to offer the right device to the right audience,” said Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner. “We will see more buyers focusing on value, rather than just price, and therefore considering higher-priced devices.”

PC market will be flat in 2018

Gartner forecasts that shipments of traditional PCs will decline by 5.4 percent in 2018 (see Table 1), with notebooks showing the steepest decline (6.8 percent). The premium ultramobile market will be the only PC segment to achieve growth in 2018, without which the overall PC market would decline.

“DRAM costs have doubled since June 2016, and PC providers have increased PC prices since the first half of 2017,” added Mr. Atwal. “This trend is likely to continue into 2018, until DRAM cost trends reverse.”

Table 1

Worldwide Device Shipments by Device Type, 2016-2019 (Millions of Units)

Device Type

2016

2017

2018

2019

Traditional PCs (Desk-Based and Notebook)

220

204

193

187

Ultramobiles (Premium)

50

59

70

80

Total PC Market

270

262

264

267

Ultramobiles (Basic and Utility)

169

160

159

156

Computing Device Market

439

423

423

423

Mobile Phones

1,893

1,855

1,903

1,924

Total Device Market

2,332

2,278

2,326

2,347

Source: Gartner (January 2018)

 By 2021, 9 percent of smartphones sold will support 5G

Gartner forecasts that mobile phone shipments will increase by 2.6 percent in 2018, with the total amounting to 1.9 billion units. In 2018, smartphone sales will grow by 6.2 percent, to represent 87 percent of mobile phone sales. “We expect Apple smartphone sales to grow by more than the market average in 2018, with the launch of new models fueling stronger replacement cycles,” said Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner.

In 2018, smartphone vendors will focus on delivering more compelling personalized experiences, via on-device (AI), virtual personal assistants and more natural user interfaces, but also through biometrics and further enhancements to display and camera features. We expect to see some of these unveiled at Mobile World Congress 2018 in Barcelona.

5G phones will reach the market in 2019, when rollouts of 5G networks will start in select countries, such as the U.S. and South Korea. “We predict that, by 2021, 9 percent of smartphones sold will support 5G,” said Ms. Cozza. “Overall, 5G will be a significant driver of video and streaming services, as it will bring faster uplinks and support new AI applications.”

Conventional electronics rely on controlling electric charge. Recently, researchers have been exploring the potential for a new technology, called spintronics, that relies on detecting and controlling a particle’s spin. This technology could lead to new types of more efficient and powerful devices.

In a paper published in Applied Physics Letters, from AIP Publishing, researchers measured how strongly a charge carrier’s spin interacts with a magnetic field in diamond. This crucial property shows diamond as a promising material for spintronic devices.

Diamond is attractive because it would be easier to process and fabricate into spintronic devices than typical semiconductor materials, said Golrokh Akhgar, a physicist at La Trobe University in Australia. Conventional quantum devices are based on multiple thin layers of semiconductors, which require an elaborate fabrication process in an ultrahigh vacuum.

“Diamond is normally an extremely good insulator,” Akhgar said. But, when exposed to hydrogen plasma, the diamond incorporates hydrogen atoms into its surface. When a hydrogenated diamond is introduced to moist air, it becomes electrically conductive because a thin layer of water forms on its surface, pulling electrons from the diamond. The missing electrons at the diamond surface behave like positively charged particles, called holes, making the surface conductive.

Researchers found that these holes have many of the right properties for spintronics. The most important property is a relativistic effect called spin-orbit coupling, where the spin of a charge carrier interacts with its orbital motion. A strong coupling enables researchers to control the particle’s spin with an electric field.

In previous work, the researchers measured how strongly a hole’s spin-orbit coupling could be engineered with an electric field. They also showed that an external electric field could tune the strength of the coupling.

In recent experiments, the researchers measured how strongly a hole’s spin interacts with a magnetic field. For this measurement, the researchers applied constant magnetic fields of different strengths parallel to the diamond surface at temperatures below 4 Kelvin. They also simultaneously applied a steadily varying perpendicular field. By monitoring how the electrical resistance of the diamond changed, they determined the g-factor. This quantity could help researchers control spin in future devices using a magnetic field.

“The coupling strength of carrier spins to electric and magnetic fields lies at the heart of spintronics,” Akhgar said. “We now have the two crucial parameters for the manipulation of spins in the conductive surface layer of diamond by either electric or magnetic fields.”

Additionally, diamond is transparent, so it can be incorporated into optical devices that operate with visible or ultraviolet light. Nitrogen-vacancy diamonds — which contain nitrogen atoms paired with missing carbon atoms in its crystal structure — show promise as a quantum bit, or qubit, the basis for quantum information technology. Being able to manipulate spin and use it as a qubit could lead to yet more devices with untapped potential, Akhgar said.

The research team that announced the first optical rectenna in 2015 is now reporting a two-fold efficiency improvement in the devices — and a switch to air-stable diode materials. The improvements could allow the rectennas – which convert electromagnetic fields at optical frequencies directly to electrical current – to operate low-power devices such as temperature sensors.

Ultimately, the researchers believe their device design – a combination of a carbon nanotube antenna and diode rectifier – could compete with conventional photovoltaic technologies for producing electricity from sunlight and other sources. The same technology used in the rectennas could also directly convert thermal energy to electricity.

Georgia Tech researchers have developed a new higher efficiency rectenna design. Here, the device’s ability to convert blue light to electricity is tested. (Credit: Christopher Moore, Georgia Tech)

Georgia Tech researchers have developed a new higher efficiency rectenna design. Here, the device’s ability to convert blue light to electricity is tested. (Credit: Christopher Moore, Georgia Tech)

“This work takes a significant leap forward in both fundamental understanding and practical efficiency for the optical rectenna device,” said Baratunde Cola, an associate professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “It opens up this technology to many more researchers who can join forces with us to advance the optical rectenna technology to help power a range of applications, including space flight.”

The research was reported January 26 in the journal Advanced Electronic Materials. The work has been supported by the U.S. Army Research Office under the Young Investigator Program, and by the National Science Foundation.

Optical rectennas operate by coupling the light’s electromagnetic field to an antenna, in this case an array of multiwall carbon nanotubes whose ends have been opened. The electromagnetic field creates an oscillation in the antenna, producing an alternating flow of electrons. When the electron flow reaches a peak at one end of the antenna, the diode closes, trapping the electrons, then re-opens to capture the next oscillation, creating a current flow.

The switching must occur at terahertz frequencies to match the light. The junction between the antenna and diode must provide minimal resistance to electrons flowing through it while open, yet prevent leakage while closed.

“The name of the game is maximizing the number of electrons that get excited in the carbon nanotube, and then having a switch that is fast enough to capture them at their peak,” Cola explained. “The faster you switch, the more electrons you can catch on one side of the oscillation.”

To provide a low work function – ease of electron flow – the researchers initially used calcium as the metal in their oxide insulator – metal diode junction. But calcium breaks down rapidly in air, meaning the device had to be encapsulated during operation – and fabricated in a glovebox. That made the optical rectenna both impractical for most applications and difficult to fabricate.

So Cola, NSF Graduate Research Fellow Erik Anderson and Research Engineer Thomas Bougher replaced the calcium with aluminum and tried a variety of oxide materials on the carbon nanotubes before settling on a bilayer material composed of alumina (Al2O3) and hafnium dioxide (HfO2). The combination coating for the carbon nanotube junction, created through an atomic deposition process, provides the quantum mechanical electron tunneling properties required by engineering the oxide electronic properties instead of the metals, which allows air stable metals with higher work functions than calcium to be used.

Rectennas fabricated with the new combination have remained functional for as long as a year. Other metal oxides could also be used, Cola said.

The researchers also engineered the slope of the hill down which the electrons fall in the tunneling process. That also helped increase the efficiency, and allows the use of a variety of oxide materials. The new design also increased the asymmetry of the diodes, which boosted efficiency.

“By working with the oxide electron affinity, we were able to increase the asymmetry by more than ten-fold, making this diode design more attractive,” said Cola. “That’s really where we got the efficiency gain in this new version of the device.”

Optical rectennas could theoretically compete with photovoltaic materials for converting sunlight into electricity. PV materials operate using a different principle, in which photons knock electrons from the atoms of certain materials. The electrons are collected into electrical current.

In September 2015 in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, Cola and Bougher reported the first optical rectenna – a device that had been proposed theoretically for more than 40 years, but never demonstrated.

The early version reported in the journal produced power at microvolt levels. The rectenna now produces power in the millivolt range and conversion efficiency has gone from 10-5 to 10-3 – still very low, but a significant gain.

“Though there still is room for significant improvement, this puts the voltage in the range where you could see optical rectennas operating low-power sensors,” Cola said. “There are a lot of device geometry steps you could take to do something useful with the optical rectenna today in voltage-driven devices that don’t require significant current.”

Cola believes the rectennas could be useful for powering internet of things devices, especially if they can be used to produce electricity from scavenged thermal energy. For converting heat to electricity, the principle is the same as for light – capturing oscillations in a field with the broadband carbon nanotube antenna.

“People have been excited about thermoelectric generators, but there are many limitations on getting a system that works effectively,” he said. “We believe that the rectenna technology will be the best approach for harvesting heat economically.”

In future work, the research team hopes to optimize the antenna operation, and improve their theoretical understanding of how the rectenna works, allowing further optimization. One day, Cola hopes the devices will help accelerate space travel, producing power for electric thrusters that will boost spacecraft.

“Our end game is to see carbon nanotube optical rectennas working on Mars and in the spacecraft that takes us to Mars,” he said.

This work was supported by the Army Research Office under the Young Investigator Program agreement W911NF-13-1-0491 and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship program under grant DGE-1650044. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsoring organizations.

SEMI, the global industry association representing the electronics manufacturing supply chain, today announced an urgent call to action to overcome the pressing semiconductor industry challenge of recruiting new talent. In a letter to the CEOs of more than 2,000 global SEMI member companies, Ajit Manocha, SEMI’s president and CEO, called on the executives to act together to attract workers and develop the workforce vital to industry growth.

New talent is key to sustaining robust growth that has broken all semiconductor industry records. Industry analysts at SEMI’s Industry Strategy Symposium (ISS) last week reported that semiconductor device (chip) revenues jumped 22 percent for the year to nearly $450 billion.  Semiconductor manufacturing equipment sales rose 36 percent and, with materials, topped $104 billion.  In 2018, chip revenues are forecast to increase 7 percent and semiconductor equipment more than 11 percent.

“Talent has become a pinch point,” Manocha said. “In Silicon Valley alone, SEMI member companies have thousands of open positions. Globally there are more than 10,000 open positions.  Attracting new candidates and developing a global work force are critical to sustain the pace of innovation and growth. If we do not act together quickly, we will choke our own growth.”

SEMI recently developed a comprehensive roadmap to attract and develop talent across regional, diversity and skill set needs. Manocha’s letter urges SEMI member CEOs to support a collective workforce development roadmap aimed at building and sustaining a talent pipeline for SEMI’s global membership. Workforce development is a pillar of SEMI 2.0, outlined in Manocha’s recent article Work to Do to Keep the Good Times Rolling.

As part of its workforce development initiatives, over the past 17 years SEMI has delivered a hands-on, STEM-based career exploration program to encourage high-school students to pursue STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) educations and careers. Through its award-winning High Tech U (HTU), SEMI has touched more than 6,000 high school students at SEMI member industry facilities in 11 U.S. states and nine countries. Over 70 percent of high school students attending HTU have pursued STEM educations and careers.

The worldwide race to create more, better and reliable quantum processors is progressing fast, as a team of TU Delft scientists led by Professor Vandersypen has realised yet again. In a neck-and-neck race with their competitors, they showed that quantum information of an electron spin can be transported to a photon, in a silicon quantum chip. This is important in order to connect quantum bits across the chip and allowing to scale up to large numbers of qubits. Their work was published today in the journal Science.

The quantum computer of the future will be able to carry out computations far beyond the capacity of today's computers. Credit: TU Delft

The quantum computer of the future will be able to carry out computations far beyond the capacity of today’s computers. Credit: TU Delft

The quantum computer of the future will be able to carry out computations far beyond the capacity of today’s computers. Quantum superpositions and entanglement of quantum bits (qubits) make it possible to perform parallel computations. Scientists and companies worldwide are engaged in creating increasingly better quantum chips with more and more quantum bits. QuTech in Delft is working hard on several types of quantum chips.

Familiar material

The core of the quantum chips is made of silicon. “This is a material that we are very familiar with,” explains Professor Lieven Vandersypen of QuTech and the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience Delft, “Silicon is widely used in transistors and so can be found in all electronic devices.” But silicon is also a very promising material for quantum technology. PhD candidate Guoji Zheng: “We can use electrical fields to capture single electrons in silicon for use as quantum bits (qubits). This is an attractive material as it ensures the information in the qubit can be stored for a long time.”

Large systems

Making useful computations requires large numbers of qubits and it is this upscaling to large numbers that is providing a challenge worldwide. “To use a lot of qubits at the same time, they need to be connected to each other; there needs to be good communication”, explains researcher Nodar Samkharadze. At present the electrons that are captured as qubits in silicon can only make direct contact with their immediate neighbours. Nodar: “That makes it tricky to scale up to large numbers of qubits.”

Neck-and-neck race

Other quantum systems use photons for long-distance interactions. For years, this was also a major goal for silicon. Only in recent years have various scientists made progress on this. The Delft scientists have now shown that a single electron spin and a single photon can be coupled on a silicon chip. This coupling makes it possible in principle to transfer quantum information between a spin and a photon. Guoji Zheng: “This is important to connect distant quantum bits on a silicon chip, thereby paving the way to upscaling quantum bits on silicon chips.”

On to the next step

Vandersypen is proud of his team: “My team achieved this result in a relatively short time and under great pressure from worldwide competition.” It is a true Delft breakthrough: “The substrate is made in Delft, the chip created in the Delft cleanrooms, and all measurements carried out at QuTech,” adds Nodar Samkharadze. The scientists are now working hard on the next steps. Vandersypen: “The goal now is to transfer the information via a photon from on electron spin to another.”

Lam Research Corp. (NASDAQ:LRCX), a global supplier of advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment, today announced the promotion of Tim Archer to the position of president, effective immediately. Mr. Archer will continue to serve as chief operating officer of the company, a position he has held since June 2012. Martin Anstice, Lam’s chief executive officer and current president, will continue as CEO.

“Tim has played a key role in leading the company through a period of transformational growth,” said Mr. Anstice. “The promotion to president is a natural evolution which recognizes Tim’s significant leadership to the success of Lam Research and the high-quality and complementary partnership that we share. It is wonderful to recognize his contributions and potential in the Office of the CEO with me; we have the privilege of working alongside an outstanding global leadership community at Lam.”

Mr. Archer was appointed chief operating officer of Lam Research in June 2012 when the company completed its acquisition of Novellus Systems, Inc. Mr. Archer was previously the chief operating officer of Novellus. He joined Novellus in 1994 and held a number of positions at that company, including executive vice president of Sales, Marketing, and Customer Satisfaction; executive vice president of the PECVD and Electrofill Business Units; and senior director of technology for Novellus Systems Japan.

As president and COO, Mr. Archer will focus on driving the operational priorities of the organization and be accountable for delivery of results across the entire company. His key focus will include ensuring that Lam continues to deliver enabling products and services to customers in a differentiated manner.  As CEO, Mr. Anstice will continue to focus on the strategic agenda and have comprehensive engagement with the full community of stakeholders, including customers, employees, suppliers, partners, and investors.

Samsung Electronics and Apple remained the top two semiconductor chip buyers in 2017, representing 19.5 percent of the total worldwide market, according to Gartner, Inc. Samsung and Apple together consumed $81.8 billion of semiconductors in 2017, an increase of more than $20 billion from 2016.

“Samsung Electronics and Apple not only retained their respective No. 1 and No. 2 positions, they also radically increased their share of semiconductor spending through 2017,” said Masatsune Yamaji, principal research analyst at Gartner “These two companies have held on to the top positions since 2011 and they continue to exert significant influence on technology and price trends for the whole semiconductor industry.”

Eight of the top 10 companies in 2016 remained in the top 10 in 2017, with the top five chip buyers remaining in the same positions (see Table 1). LG Electronics returned to the top 10 and was joined by newcomer Western Digital, which grew its semiconductor spending by $1.7 billion in 2017. BBK Electronics rose one place to sixth position, increasing its semiconductor spending by $5.7 billion.

Table 1. Preliminary Ranking of Top 10 Companies by Semiconductor Design TAM, Worldwide, (Millions of Dollars)

2016 Ranking

2017

Ranking

Company

2016

2017

2017 Market

Share (%)

Growth (%) 2016-2017

1

1

Samsung Electronics

31,426

43,108

10.3

37.2

2

2

Apple*

30,390

38,754

9.2

27.5

3

3

Dell

13,544

15,702

3.7

15.9

4

4

Lenovo

13,384

14,671

3.5

9.6

5

5

Huawei

10,792

14,259

3.4

32.1

7

6

BBK Electronics

6,411

12,103

2.9

88.8

6

7

HP Inc.

8,906

9,971

2.4

12.0

8

8

Hewlett Packard Enterprises

6,124

7,199

1.7

17.5

11

9

LG Electronics

5,162

6,537

1.6

26.6

13

10

Western Digital

4,470

6,210

1.5

38.9

Others

212,906

251,206

59.9

18.0

Total

343,514

419,720

100.0

22.2

TAM = total available market

Source: Gartner (January 2018)

A significant price increase of DRAM and NAND flash memory had a big impact on semiconductor buyers’ ranking through 2017. Most original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), even the big ones, could not avoid the risk of a memory chip shortage and rise of memory prices through 2017. Supply shortages occurred not just in the memory IC market, but also in other semiconductor chip markets, such as microcontrollers and discrete, as well as in the passive component market, which benefited the suppliers but troubled the OEMs. On the other hand, successful OEMs are often differentiating their products with their own captive silicon solutions. The increase in OEMs’ captive chip spending is a great risk for commercial chip vendors’ future growth.

Semiconductor spending by the top 10 OEMs increased significantly, and their share reached 40 percent of the total semiconductor market in 2017, up from 31 percent 10 years ago. This trend is expected to continue, and Gartner predicts that, by 2021, the top 10 OEMs will account for more than 45 percent of total global semiconductor spending.

“With the top 10 semiconductor chip buyers commanding an increasing share of the market, technology product marketing leaders at chip vendors must focus on their leading customers,” said Mr. Yamaji. “They will need to prioritize direct sales and technical support resources to these top customers by exploiting online technical support capabilities and outsourcing the support for long-tail customers to third-party partners and distributors.”