Toshiba also benefited from supplying chips for the PS3 as well as its success in NAND flash memory. The Japan semiconductor firm attained the third highest revenue growth among the Top 10 suppliers in 2007, up 20.2 percent from 2006. This has positioned Toshiba to vie with Texas Instruments for the third rank in 2008.
Fabless is fabulous
Except Sony, it was two U.S. fabless semiconductor supplier—Qualcomm Inc. and nVidia Corp.—that led the growth among the Top 25 chip companies during 2007.
Qualcomm’s revenues grew by 24.1 percent as it moved up three positions in the rankings to reach 13th place. For the first time, a position in the Top 10 is within reach of a fabless semiconductor supplier. nVidia achieved revenue growth of 34.4 percent and leaped from No. 25 to No. 20 in the rankings. nVidia’s revenues also received an additional boost from its acquisition of PortalPlayer during 2007.
Big get bigger
Overall, the top 25 semiconductor suppliers significantly outperformed the combined performance of companies ranked lower than them in 2007. The Top 25 as a group achieved revenue growth of 4.5 percent in 2007 while the combined growth of all other semiconductor suppliers was only 0.8 percent.
Other notable developments in the 2007 semiconductor market included:
Logic application specific ICs (ASSPs and ASICs) enjoyed the strongest performance of all semiconductor segments with growth of 12.9 percent. Sony and Toshiba were the key drivers of growth in this segment due to their sales of semiconductors for the PS3. Among the Top 10 suppliers in this market, nVidia also achieved an outstanding year.
Other product categories that enjoyed above-average revenue growth in 2007 were optical semiconductors, with a 7.4 percent rise and sensors and actuators with a 7.3 percent expansion. Discrete semiconductors even managed growth of 4.2 percent.
In the microcomponent category, Intel Corp. enjoyed a return to healthy growth in its microprocessor revenue, with an 8 percent rise in 2007. This growth came at the expense of Advanced Micro Devices Inc., which saw a significant decline in its microprocessor revenues. Overall, microprocessor revenue grew by 2.1 percent in 2007.
Global revenue growth for analog ICs amounted to 2.9 percent in 2007. Among the Top 10 suppliers of analog ICs, Qualcomm and Infineon delivered notably strong revenue growth with increases of greater than 20 percent for the year.
Among applications for semiconductors, automotive electronics drove the highest growth opportunities in 2007 with 11.2 percent growth. Regionally, Asia Pacific accounted for the highest regional growth as it expanded by 6.6 percent in 2007.
