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IC Insights will release its August Update to the 2015 McClean Report later this month.  The August Update will include an in-depth analysis of the IC foundry market and a look at the top 25 1H15 semiconductor suppliers’ sales results and their outlooks for 3Q15 (the top 20 1H15 semiconductor suppliers are covered in this research bulletin).

The top-20 worldwide semiconductor (IC and O S D—optoelectronic, sensor, and discrete) sales ranking for 1H15 is depicted in Figure 1.  As shown, it took just over $2.2 billion in sales just to make it into the 1H15 top-20 ranking and eight of the top 20 companies had 1H15 sales of at least $5.0 billion. The ranking includes seven suppliers headquartered in the U.S., four in Japan, three in Taiwan, three in Europe, two in South Korea, and one in Singapore.  The top-20 supplier list includes three pure-play foundries (TSMC, GlobalFoundries, and UMC) and four fabless companies.

IC Insights includes foundries in the top 20 semiconductor supplier ranking since it has always viewed the ranking as a top supplier list, not a marketshare ranking, and realizes that in some cases the semiconductor sales are double counted.

It should be noted that not all foundry sales should be excluded when attempting to create marketshare data. For example, although Samsung had a large amount of foundry sales in 1H15, some of its foundry sales were to Apple and other electronic system suppliers.  Since the electronic system suppliers do not resell these devices, counting these foundry sales as Samsung IC sales does not introduce double counting.  Overall, the top-20 list in Figure 1 is provided as a guideline to identify which companies are the leading semiconductor suppliers, whether they are IDMs, fabless companies, or foundries.

semi sales 2q15 fig 1

In total, the top 20 semiconductor companies’ sales increased by only 1% in 2Q15/1Q15, the same growth rate as the total worldwide semiconductor industry.  Although the top-20 semiconductor companies registered a 1% sequential increase in 2Q15, there was a 23-point spread between Samsung, the fastest growing company on the list (10 percent growth), and Qualcomm, the worst performing supplier (13 percent decline) in the ranking.  Moreover, given Qualcomm’s currently dismal guidance for 3Q15, the company is on pace to post a semiconductor sales decline of 20 percent in calendar year 2015.

Samsung’s excellent growth rate in 2Q15 put the company closer to catching Intel and becoming the world’s leading semiconductor supplier.  In 2014, Intel’s semiconductor sales were 36 percent greater than Samsung’s.  In 2Q15, the delta dropped by a whopping 20 percentage points to only 16 percent.  However, with Intel providing guidance for a 3Q15/2Q15 sales increase of 8 percent and Samsung facing a lackluster DRAM market (primarily due to pricing pressures), additional gains toward the number one position may be difficult for Samsung to achieve in the near future.

There were two new entrants into the top 20 ranking in 1H15—Japan-based Sharp and Taiwan-based pure-play foundry UMC, which replaced U.S.-based Nvidia and AMD.  AMD had a particularly rough 2Q15 and saw its sales drop 35 percent year-over-year.  In fact, in 2Q15, the company’s sales fell below $1.0 billion for the first time since 3Q03, almost 12 years ago.  It currently appears that AMD’s 2013 restructuring and new strategy programs to focus on non-PC end-use segments have yet to pay off (in addition to its sales decline, AMD lost $361 million in 1H15 after losing $403 million in 2014).

IC Insights has recently lowered its 2015 worldwide semiconductor market forecast from 5 percent to 2 percent.  As was shown in Figure 1, the top 20 semiconductor suppliers in total had $128.3 billion in sales in 1H15.  This figure was just under 50 percent of the top 20 companies’ full year 2014 sales of $259.1 billion.  With only modest growth expected in the second half of this year for the worldwide semiconductor market, the top 20 semiconductor suppliers’ combined sales in 2015 are expected to be only about 1-2 percent greater than in 2014.

Figure 2 shows how the 1H15 top 20 ranking would have looked if the Avago/Broadcom and NXP/Freescale mergers were in place.  As shown, Avago/Broadcom would have been ranked 7th and NXP/Freescale would have moved into the 10th spot.  IC Insights believes that additional acquisitions and mergers over the next few years are likely to continue to shake up the future top 20 semiconductor company rankings.

semi sales 2q15 fig 2

IC Insights’ new 185-page Mid-Year Update to The McClean Report, which will be released later this week, examines the recent surge of M&A activity, including China’s aggressive new programs aimed at bolstering its presence in the semiconductor industry.

It would be hard to characterize the huge wave of semiconductor mergers and acquisitions occurring in 2015 as anything but M&A mania, or even madness.  In just the first six months of 2015 alone, announced semiconductor acquisition agreements had a combined total value of $72.6 billion (Figure 1), which is nearly six times the annual average for M&A deals struck during the five previous years (2010-2014).

Figure 1

Figure 1

Three enormous acquisition agreements in 1H15 have already catapulted 2015 into the M&A record books.  First, NXP announced an agreement in March to buy Freescale for $11.8 billion in cash and stock.  In late May, Avago announced a deal to acquire Broadcom for about $37 billion in cash and stock, and then four days later (on June 1), Intel reported it had struck an agreement to buy Altera for $16.7 billion in cash.  Avago’s astonishing deal to buy Broadcom is by far the largest acquisition agreement ever reached in the IC industry.

In many ways, 2015 has become a perfect storm for acquisitions, mergers, and consolidation among major suppliers, which are seeing sales slow in their existing market segments and need to broaden their businesses to stay in favor with investors.  Rising costs of product development and advanced technologies are also driving the need to become bigger and grow sales at higher rates in the second half of this decade.  The emergence of the huge market potential for the Internet of Things (IoT) is causing major IC suppliers to reset their strategies and quickly fill in missing pieces in their product portfolios.  China’s ambitious goal to become self-sufficient in semiconductors and reduce imports of ICs from foreign suppliers has also launched a number of acquisitions by Chinese companies and investment groups.

IC Insights believes that the increasing number of mergers and acquisitions, leading to fewer major IC manufacturers and suppliers, is one of major changes in the supply base that illustrate the maturing of the industry.  In addition to the monstrous M&A wave currently taking place, trends such as the lack of any new entry points for startup IC manufacturers, the strong movement to the fab-lite business model, and the declining capex as a percent of sales ratio, all promise to dramatically reshape the semiconductor industry landscape over the next five years.

ReportsnReports.com added 2015 semiconductor market research reports that forecast a 2.9 percent CAGR to 2020 for semiconductor industry and a 6.7 percent rise from 2014 in the semiconductor equipment market size during 2015 across the world.

The Global Semiconductor Market 2015 – 2020 research report forecasts revenues for key services across key geographies. The global semiconductor market is forecast to reach $332bn across 2015, representing a 3.4 percent growth in comparison to $316bn in 2014. This research forecasts that the market will grow at a 5-yr CAGR of 2.9 percent over 2015 to 2020, with the majority of growth being driven by mobile, automotive and industrial application markets. The consumer electronics and data processing application markets are expected to remain at the end of the growth spectrum with limited expectations for any innovative development to lead market demand.

Key product and service applications for semiconductor technology include innovations in smart devices and hyper-connected communications networks, as well as medical devices and efficient infrastructure across the energy sector. There is still capacity in the semiconductor market for innovative semiconductor production methods that drive expenditure reduction, productivity, and efficiency as the demand for performance increases.

This semiconductor market research facilitates analysis of the state of the global semiconductor market in 2015 and a market forecast for the period 2015-2020. It helps identify how the market operates and which companies are operating in the market, their current products and pipeline candidates. Discover how the semiconductor market is evolving across the forecast period of 2015-2020 through the examination of global and regional benefits and challenges, particularly relating to political, economic, social, and technological factors and read interviews with 2 key global authorities in the semiconductor market.

Top 20 global semiconductor industry players, by revenue, 2014 listed in this research include Intel, Samsung, Qualcomm, Micron, SK Hynix, Texas Instruments, Toshiba, Broadcom, TSMC, STM, MediaTek, Renesas, SanDisk, Infineon, NXP, Avago, AMD, Freescale, Sony and NVIDIA.

The second research titled “Global and China Semiconductor Equipment Industry Report, 2014-2015″ says in 2014, the global semiconductor equipment market size totaled USD38 billion, up 10.4 percent from 2013. It is predicted that in 2015 this figure will climb to USD40.5 billion, a rise of 6.7 percent from a year ago, and that the market size in 2016 will slump by 5.6 percent as compared to 2015. However, the possible shrinkage in 2016 might come from the following factors:

Firstly, following a peak in 2014, main electronic products such as smartphones and tablet and laptop PCs have stagnated or declined. This is particularly true of tablet PCs, which has presented a significant decline. On the other hand, equipment market delays being sluggish but will without doubt decline in 2016.

Secondly, due to the global deflation, prices for bulk commodity led by oil and iron ore plunged and would cause knock-on effect, which would in turn result in a fall in semiconductor equipment prices.

Thirdly, global economic recovery will probably come to a halt, with the US GDP dropping by 0.7 percent in 2015Q1. Moreover, China’s GDP growth slowed obviously. The both countries constituted the major driving force of the global economy. The stimulatory effect of US QE began to fade away, and therefore the economy might go down.

In 2014, semiconductor equipment vendors made remarkable performance, with a substantial rise in operating profit, though their revenue did not increased. The merger of Applied Material and Tokyo Electron was rejected by the US Department of Commerce. In future, more of M&A plans may well be intervened by the government, after all semiconductor equipment market is a highly concentrated market.

In 2015, the Chinese semiconductor companies and institutions showed their strength, launching a series of mergers and acquisitions. The Chinese enterprises are adept in and fond of capital operation rather than industrial production. The semiconductor equipment market size in China will reach USD4.4 billion in 2015, of which the domestic companies, mostly engaged in low-end equipment, will account for just 14 percent.

Major semiconductor equipment market vendors mentioned in this report include Applied Materials, ASML, Tokyo Electron, KLA-Tencor, Lam Research, DAINIPPON SCREEN, Nikon Precision, Advantest, Hitachi High-Technologies, ASM International N.V., Teradyne, ASM PACIFIC, Kulicke & Soffa, AMEC and Sevenstar Electronics.

The ClassOne Technology Solstice S4 won the Best of West award, presented by Solid State Technology and SEMI. The award was presented to Byron Exarcos, president of ClassOne, at the company’s booth in the North Hall on Wednesday afternoon.

Byron Exarcos, president of ClassOne Technology; Karen Salava, president of SEMI Americas; and Pete Singer, Editor-in-Chief of Solid State Technolgy

Byron Exarcos, president of ClassOne Technology; Karen Salava, president of SEMI Americas; and Pete Singer, Editor-in-Chief of Solid State Technolgy

Solstice S4 is the first automated plating tool that delivers advanced performance on smaller substrates at affordable prices. Described as “advanced plating for the rest of us,” Solstice is designed specifically for the smaller-substrate users in emerging technologies such as MEMs, LEDs, Power Devices, RF Communications, Interposers, Photonics and Microfluidics. Solstice sets new standards for plating performance and affordability.

“There’s a convergence of forces for the different trends that we all see in the market, and right now, it’s the internet of things, it’s the More than Moore, and it’s the flexibility of the manufacturers to achieve all these things,” said Kevin Witt, chief technology officer at ClassOne Technology, after the award presention. “We’ve felt that we had a product that reflected a lot of what those requirements were.”

Witt said there’s a lot of work being done at the cutting edge of 300mm, as well it should. “But there’s an equally important 200mm and below surge. Those folks need equipment. What they can buy now is from the ‘90s,” he said.

Until now, with the Solstice. “The people that are building the 200mm and below fabs need the modern capability of wafer level packaging and interfacing for chip stacking. They need something that fits their budget profile, that is not a 300mm tool that has been repurposed for 200mm,” he said.

Witt concluded: “We went for best of show in the hopes that the world would see that there are companies that are focused on meeting the needs of the smaller level producers that are the next growth area.”

Designed for high-performance, cost-efficient ≤200mm electroplating, Solstice systems are priced at less than half of what similarly configured plating tools from the larger manufacturers would cost — which is why Solstice has been described as delivering “Advanced Plating for the Rest of Us.” Solstice can electroplate many different metals and alloys in a spectrum of processes, on transparent or opaque substrates. ClassOne now offers three Solstice models: the LT for plating process development, the S4 for mid-volume production, and the S8 for high-volume, cassette-to-cassette production, with throughput of up to 75 wph.

Earlier this week, at SEMICON West, ClassOne Technology announced a configuration for optimizing Through Silicon Via (TSV) and Through Wafer Via (TWV) processes on its Solstice® electroplating systems. The Solstice family, introduced last year, is designed to provide advanced yet cost-efficient plating for MEMS, Sensors, RF, Interposers and other emerging technologies for ≤200mm wafers. Flexibly configurable, the Solstice for TSV/TWV combines chambers for the critical blind via pre-wet operation with advanced copper plating on the robust and reliable automation frame that is the heart of the Solstice.

“In recent months customer requests for TWV, whether alone or in combination with forming redistribution layers (RDL), have skyrocketed,” said Witt. “Many of our smaller-wafer customers seek the advantages of 2.5 and 3D packaging needed for their next generation products; and cost-effective TSV or TWV processing is mission critical. The new Solstice configuration addresses their needs effectively and elegantly with a plating tool that is affordably priced for 200mm and smaller substrates.”

Witt explained that the new Solstice TSV configuration, which has already been sold to customers, employs a unique, high-efficiency but simple vacuum pre-wet chamber followed by copper via electroplating. This combination of capabilities enables the ClassOne tool to routinely produce fully-filled or lined vias with widths ranging from 5 to 250 micron having aspect ratios as high as 9:1. Traditionally, this level of performance has been challenging even for plating systems costing twice as much as Solstice. The Solstice can also be configured to perform additional downstream processing such as resist strip and seed layer etch making it a cluster tool that delivers a suite of critical processes, reducing cycle time and saving money. This technology makes it possible to process TSV alone or TSV and redistribution layers simultaneously to provide a complete solution on a single tool.

By Pete Singer, Editor-in-Chief

SEMICON West 2015 kicked off Tuesday morning with a keynote panel session that addressed the challenges of “Scaling the Walls of Sub-14nm Manufacturing.” The general consensus was that future progress is dependent on better coordination and collaboration between design, manufacturing and packaging companies and people.

The panel consisted of Jo de Boeck, Senior Vice President, Corporate Technology at imec, who acted as the moderator; Gary Patton, Chief Technology Officer and Head of Worldwide Research and Development at GLOBALFOUNDRIES; Michael Campbell, Senior VP Engineering at Qualcomm; Calvin Cheung, Vice President, Business Development and Engineering at ASE and Subhasish Mitra, Associate Professor, Dept. of EE and CD at Stanford University.

Tuesday panel

Patton said the end of scaling was nowhere in sight. “People have talked about the end of scaling. Scaling is not going to end. I am not worried about solving the physics challenges,” he said. “We have run into many barriers over the years and we always find a way to get around it.

Patton said what worries him is doing it in a way “that can deliver to our customers a real value proposition for going to that next technology node. The cost of doing design in these nodes is increasing at a pretty rapid rate and we have to provide them with a return on investment. It’s becoming more challenging,” he said.

He noted that in the past most breakthroughs, such as high-k metal gates, took over 10 years in the research stage before they were ready for manufacturing. That was one reason behind the merger between IBM and GLOBALFOUNDRIES: access to 16,000 some IBM patents. Patton also mentioned IBM’s expertise in a ASICs business, differentiated IP, RF technology – both silicon germanium as well as RFSOI – as well as 3D and 2.5D technologies.

Qualcomm’s Mike Campbell said the biggest threat to Moore’s Law is yield. “Yield is now an end-to-end question,” he said. “That doesn’t just mean semiconductor yield today. It’s the package yield on top of that and then the systems yield.”

Campbell said he’d like to see that end-to-end yield contained in a productivity model. “If you have a 10nm or 7nm silicon piece and it works to the spec at the silicon level, but then we change the stress characteristics because we have to saw and dice it up into a package. Then we put it into a 2.5D or 3D package and change the stress levels again. The yields change at every level,” he said.

Campbell believes that the whole system has to be interactive. “Until 28nm, you didn’t need to have that interactivity. But as we go deeper and deeper into submicron technology, the interactivity between the package, the system and the silicon itself—and the basic R&D for the silicon – all have to start to play together or else at the end we’ll end up with gaps in the system which will then add cost to the deliverables that we have to bring to the marketplace,” he said.

ASE’s Calvin Cheung said the company’s biggest concern was CPI (chip package interaction). “We are really pushing assembly and test technology capabilities,” he said. “In the case of 2.5D, we have connect a couple hundred thousand interconnects and put them on a very, very small space. With the scaling, the die is getting smaller but your I/O density continues to increase.”

IBM Research today announced that working with alliance partners at SUNY Polytechnic Institute’s Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (SUNY Poly CNSE) it has produced the semiconductor industry’s first 7nm (nanometer) node test chips with functional transistors. The breakthrough underscores IBM’s continued leadership and long-term commitment to semiconductor technology research.

The accomplishment, made possible through IBM’s unique public-private partnership with New York State and joint development alliance with GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Samsung and equipment suppliers, is driven by the company’s $3 billion, five-year investment in chip R&D announced in 2014. Under that program, IBM researchers based at SUNY Poly’s NanoTech Complex in Albany are pushing the limits of chip technology to 7nm node and beyond to meet the demands of cloud computing and Big Data systems, cognitive computing and mobile products.

Developing a viable 7nm node technology has been one of the grand challenges of the semiconductor industry. Pursuing such small dimensions through conventional processes has degraded chip performance and negated the expected benefits of scaling — higher performance, less cost and lower power requirements. Microprocessors utilizing 22nm and 14nm technology power today’s servers, cloud data centers and mobile devices, and 10nm technology is well on the way to becoming a mature technology, but 7nm node has remained out of reach due to a number of fundamental technology barriers. In fact, many have questioned whether the traditional benefits of such small chip dimensions could ever be achieved.

The IBM 7nm node test chip with functioning transistors was achieved using new semiconductor processes and techniques pioneered by IBM Research. Developing it required a number of first-in-the-industry innovations, most notably silicon germanium (SiGe) channel transistors and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography integration at multiple levels.

By introducing SiGe channel material for transistor performance enhancement at 7nm node geometries, process innovations to stack them below 30nm pitch and full integration of EUV lithography at multiple levels, IBM was able to achieve close to 50 percent area scaling improvements over today’s most advanced 10nm technology. These efforts could result in at least a 50 percent power/performance improvement for the next generation of systems that will power the Big Data, cloud and mobile era.

The 7nm node milestone continues IBM’s legacy of historic contributions to silicon and semiconductor innovation. They include the invention or first implementation of the single cell DRAM, the Dennard Scaling Laws, chemically amplified photoresists, copper interconnect wiring, Silicon on Insulator, strained engineering, multi core microprocessors, immersion lithography, high speed SiGe, High-k gate dielectrics, embedded DRAM, 3D chip stacking and Air gap insulators.

IBM and SUNY Poly have built a highly successful, globally recognized partnership at the multi-billion dollar Albany NanoTech Complex, highlighted by the institution’s Center for Semiconductor Research (CSR), a $500 million program that also includes the world’s leading nanoelectronics companies. The CSR is a long-term, multi-phase, joint R&D cooperative program on future computer chip technology. It continues to provide student scholarships and fellowships at the university to help prepare the next generation of nanotechnology scientists, researchers and engineers.

Related news: 

IBM announces $3B research initiative

GLOBALFOUNDRIES completes acquisition of IBM Microelectronics business

Large-screen smartphones, with displays of 5 inches or greater and often called “phablets” (for phone/tablet hybrids), are on track to surpass worldwide shipments of tablet computers this year, according to IC Insights’ new Update to the 2015 IC Market Drivers report.  The Update’s forecast shows the popularity of extra-large smartphones continuing to gain momentum in the first half of 2015 with unit shipments now expected to reach 252 million this year, which is a 66 percent increase from 152 million sold in 2014 (Figure 1).  Strong growth in large smartphones is having a major impact on tablet unit sales, which are forecast to increase just 2 percent in 2015 to 238 million units.

Figure 1

Figure 1

IC Insights believes strong sales of large-screen smartphones will continue in the next three years while the tablet market struggles with low single-digit percentage growth through 2018.  The revised forecast shows large-screen smartphone shipments climbing by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40 percent between 2014 and 2018, while tablet unit shipments are expected to rise by a CAGR of just 3 percent in this four-year period.  Large-screen smartphones are having the biggest impact on mini tablets, which saw a rise in popularity in the past few years.  Mini tablets have 7- to 8.9-inch displays and typically run the same software as smartphones.

The phablet segment is expected to account for 17 percent of total smartphone shipments in 2015, which are forecast to be about 1.5 billion handsets.  The Update report shows phablets representing 21 percent of the 1.7 billion smartphones that are forecast to be shipped in 2016.  Phablet sales are projected to reach 30 percent of the nearly 2 billion total smartphones shipped in 2018, according to the Update of the 2015 IC Market Drivers report.

Tablet unit sales have nearly stalled out because incremental improvements in new models have not been enough to convince owners of existing systems to buy replacements.  More consumers are opting to buy new large-screen phablets instead using both a smartphone and tablet.  Large smartphones have gained traction because more handsets are being used for video applications (including streaming of TV programs and movies) in addition to Internet web browsing, video gaming, GPS navigation, and looking at digital photos.

The market for large-screen smartphones received a boost from Apple’s highly successful iPhone 6 Plus handset, which started shipping in September 2014 and continued to gain momentum in the first half of 2015.  Apple joined the phablet movement somewhat belatedly, but its 5.5-inch display iPhone 6 Plus smartphone played a major role in the company shipping 61.2 million iPhone handsets in 1Q15, which was a 40 percent increase over the same quarter in 2014.

By Christian Dieseldorff and Lara Chamness, SEMI

We, in the semiconductor supply chain, are constantly immersed in detailed numbers. It’s important to pull back and look at the major trends that have profoundly changed and are reshaping our industry.

Data from SEMI World Fab Forecast reports

1997

2002

2007

2012

2017
Global Volume Fab Count
Number of Fabs WW 

682

802

849

861

864
Number of Fabs WW (excluding discrete and LED)

472

508

499

440

440
Global Volume Fabs by Wafer Size
Number of volume 200mm fabs (excluding discrete and LED)

111

170

173

152

149
Number of volume 300mm fabs (excluding discrete and LED)

0

13

62

81

109
Global Fab Capacity by Device Type
Fab Capacity (200mm equiv. thousand wafer starts per month)

5,655 

7,519 

15,441 

18,068 

20,609 

Memory

20%

19%

36%

29%

27%

Foundry

13%

19%

18%

27%

30%

MPU&Logic

35%

31%

22%

17%

16%

Analog, Discretes, MEMS & Other

32%

31%

24%

27%

26%
Largest Regional Fab Capacities
Fab Capacity Regional Trends (excluding discrete and LED)

Largest installed capacity

Japan

Japan

Japan

Japan

Taiwan

Second largest installed capacity

Americas

Americas

Taiwan

S. Korea

S. Korea

Third largest installed capacity

Europe

Europe

S. Korea

Taiwan

Japan
Source: SEMI (www.semi.org) 

The table shows that the largest increase of new fabs occurred in the time frame from 1997 to 2002 with 18 percent growth rate. The growth rate drops to 6 percent from 2002 to 2007, 1 percent from 2007 to 2012 and flat from 2012 to 2017. This drop in change rate does not mean that there are no new fabs being built but is explained by fabs closing. There are still new fabs being built ─ especially for 300mm ─ but the rate of fabs closing is overshadowing this fact. From 2007 to 2012 alone over 150 facilities closed with majority from 2008 to 2010.

With the rise of 300mm at begin of the millennium we see a rapid increase of 300mm fabs from 2002 to 2007 with 380 percent and at the same time a decrease of new 200m fabs from 50 percent to 2 percent. From 2007 to 2012 more 200mm fabs were closed but this trend is slowing. With emerging IOT demand, 200mm fabs will be part of the capacity mix for the foreseeable future.

Fueled by the fabless or “fab lite” movement, we see that the foundry era has a strong and steady growth since begin of its era in the 90s. By 2017, foundry capacity will have surpassed memory with 30 percent of the total capacity.

Both foundry and memory mainly use 300mm wafers which contribute to the large increase in capacity. The other sector MPU & Logic uses mainly 300mm but there are still fabs with wafer sizes of 200mm or less. While the Logic sector is increasing in capacity with System LSI applications, we see a decline for MPU which contributed to the decline in share.  Although we see an increase of capacity for sensors and analog/mixed signal, the sector combined as “Analog, Discretes, MEMS & Others” shows modest growth mainly because the wafer sizes used are 200mm and below which contributes to the less share of capacity.

For decades Japan was the leader in installed capacity which will have changed by 2017 when Taiwan will have taken over the highest capacity spot.  Japan is restructuring business models and approaching a more fab-lite to fabless model.  Korea is mainly driven by Samsung and is benefitting from the mobile business using memory and System LSI chips.

For more information on market data, visit www.semi.org/en/MarketInfo and attend an upcoming SEMICON: SEMICON West 2015 (July 14-16) in San Francisco, Calif; SEMICON Taiwan 2015 (September 2-4) in Taipei, Taiwan; SEMICON Europa 2015 (October 6-8) in Dresden, Germany; SEMICON Japan 2015 (December 16-18) in Tokyo, Japan.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES today announced that it has completed its acquisition of IBM’s Microelectronics business.

With the acquisition, GLOBALFOUNDRIES gains differentiated technologies to enhance its product offerings in key growth markets, from mobility and Internet of Things (IoT) to Big Data and high-performance computing. The deal strengthens the company’s workforce, adding decades of experience and expertise in semiconductor development, device expertise, design, and manufacturing. And the addition of more than 16,000 patents and applications makes GLOBALFOUNDRIES the holder of one of the largest semiconductor patent portfolios in the world.

“Today we have significantly enhanced our technology development capabilities and reinforce our long-term commitment to investing in R&D for technology leadership,” said Sanjay Jha, chief executive officer of GLOBALFOUNDRIES. “We have added world-class technologists and differentiated technologies, such as RF and ASIC, to meet our customers’ needs and accelerate our progress toward becoming a foundry powerhouse.”

Through the addition of some of the brightest and most innovative scientists and engineers in the semiconductor industry, GLOBALFOUNDRIES solidifies its path to advanced process technologies at 10nm, 7nm, and beyond.

In RF, GLOBALFOUNDRIES now has technology leadership in wireless front-end module solutions. IBM has developed world-class capabilities in both RF silicon-on-insulator (RFSOI) and high-performance silicon-germanium (SiGe) technologies, which are highly complementary to GLOBALFOUNDRIES’ existing mainstream technology offerings. The company will continue to invest to deliver the next generation of its RFSOI roadmap and looks to capture opportunities in the automotive and home markets.

In ASICs, GLOBALFOUNDRIES now has technology leadership in wired communications. This enables the company to provide the design capabilities and IP necessary to develop these high-performance customized products and solutions. With increased investments, the company plans to develop additional ASIC solutions in areas of storage, printers and networking. The most recent ASIC family, announced in January and built on GLOBALFOUNDRIES’ 14nm-LPP technology, has been well accepted in the marketplace with several design wins.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES increases its manufacturing scale with fabs in East Fishkill, NY and Essex Junction, VT. These facilities will operate as part of the company’s growing global operations, adding capacity and top-notch engineers to better meet the needs of its existing and new customers.

Moreover, the transaction builds on significant investments in the burgeoning Northeast Technology Corridor, which includes GLOBALFOUNDRIES’ leading-edge Fab 8 facility in Saratoga County, NY and joint R&D activities at SUNY Polytechnic Institute’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering in Albany, NY. The company’s presence in the northeast now exceeds 8,000 direct employees.

The acquisition includes an exclusive commitment to supply IBM with advanced semiconductor processor solutions for the next 10 years. GLOBALFOUNDRIES also gets direct access to IBM’s continued investment in semiconductor research, solidifying its path to advanced process geometries at 10nm and beyond.

Related news: 

IBM announces $3B research initiative

Power transistor sales are forecast to grow 6 percent in 2015 and set a new record high of $14.0 billion following a strong recovery in 2014, which drove up dollar volumes by 14 percent after two consecutive years of decline, according to IC Insights’ 2015 O S-D Report—A Market Analysis and Forecast for Optoelectronics, Sensors/Actuators, and Discretes.  In the last six years, power transistor sales have swung wildly, overshooting and undershooting end-use demand as equipment makers struggled to balance inventories in the midst of economic uncertainty since the 2008-2009 recession.

IC Insights believes the power transistor business is finally stabilizing and returning to more normal growth patterns in the 2014-2019 forecast period of the 2015 O-S-D Report.  Driven by steady increases in automotive, consumer electronics, portable systems, industrial, and wireless communications markets, power transistor sales are expected to rise by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.3 percent between 2014 and 2019, when worldwide revenues are forecast to reach $17.1 billion (Figure 1).  Worldwide power transistor sales grew by a CAGR of 6.2 percent between 1994 and 2014.

For more than three decades, power transistors have been the growth engine in the commodity-filled discrete semiconductor market, which grew 11 percent in 2014 to a record-high $23.0 billion after falling 7 percent in 2012 and dropping 5 percent in 2013.  The new O-S-D Report shows power transistors accounted for 58 percent of total discretes sales in 2014 versus 51 percent in 2004 and 36 percent in 1994.  A number of power transistor technologies are needed to control, convert, and condition currents and voltages in an ever-expanding range of electronics—including battery-operated portable products, new energy-saving equipment, hybrid and electric vehicles,  “smart” electric-grid applications, and renewable power systems.

Despite the spread of system applications, power transistors have struggled to maintain steady sales growth since the 2009 semiconductor downturn, when revenues fell by 16 percent.  Power transistor sales sharply rebounded in the 2010 recovery year with a record-high 44 percent increase followed by 12 percent growth in 2011 to reach the current annual peak of $13.5 billion.  Power transistors then posted the first back-to-back annual sales declines in more than 30 years (-8 percent in 2012 and -6 percent in 2013) due to inventory corrections, price erosion, and delays in purchases by cautious equipment makers responding to economic uncertainty.   Power transistors ended the two-year losing streak in 2014 with sales and unit shipments both growing by 14 percent.

Figure 1

Figure 1

The 2015 O-S-D Report’s forecast shows power transistor sales returning to a more normal 6% increase in 2015 with power FET revenues growing 6 percent to $7.4 billion, insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) modules climbing 8 percent to $3.1 billion, IGBT transistors rising 6 percent to $1.1 billion, and bipolar junction transistors being up 4 percent to $893 million this year.