The semiconductor industry is the aggregate of companies engaged in the

design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design' ...

and fabrication of

semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical conductivity value falling between that of a conductor, such as copper, and an insulator, such as glass. Its resistivity falls as its temperature rises; metals behave in the opposite way. ...

s and

semiconductor devices A semiconductor device is an electronic component that relies on the electronic properties of a semiconductor material (primarily silicon, germanium, and gallium arsenide, as well as organic semiconductors) for its function. Its conductivity l ...

, such as

transistors upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink). A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch ...

and integrated circuits. It formed around 1960, once the fabrication of

became a viable business. The industry's annual semiconductor sales revenue has since grown to over , as of 2018. The semiconductor industry is in turn the driving force behind the wider electronics industry, with annual

power electronics Power electronics is the application of electronics to the control and conversion of electric power. The first high-power electronic devices were made using mercury-arc valves. In modern systems, the conversion is performed with semiconducto ...

sales of £135billion () as of 2011, annual

consumer electronics Consumer electronics or home electronics are electronic ( analog or digital) equipment intended for everyday use, typically in private homes. Consumer electronics include devices used for entertainment, communications and recreation. Usuall ...

sales expected to reach by 2020, tech industry sales expected to reach in 2019, and

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain managem ...

with over in 2017. In 2019, 32.4% of the semiconductor market segment was for networks and communications devices. In 2021, the sales of semiconductors reached a record $555.9 billion, up 26.2 percent with sales in China reaching $192.5 billion, according to the

Semiconductor Industry Association The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) is a trade association and lobbying group founded in 1977 that represents the United States semiconductor industry. It is located in Washington, D.C. One of the main achievements of the SIA was the c ...

. A record 1.15 trillion semiconductor units were shipped in the calendar year. The semiconductors is projected to reach $ 726.73 billion by 2027.

Industry structure

The global semiconductor industry is dominated by companies from the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...

, Japan and the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

Who exported Electronic integrated circuits in 2016

Who exported Semiconductor devices in 2016

Unique features of the industry include continuous growth but in a cyclical pattern with high volatility. While the current 20 year annual average growth of the semiconductor industry is on the order of 13%, this has been accompanied by equally above-average market volatility, which can lead to significant if not dramatic cyclical swings. This has required the need for high degrees of flexibility and innovation in order to constantly adjust to the rapid pace of change in the market as many products embedding semiconductor devices often have a very short life cycle. At the same time, the rate of constant price-performance improvement in the semiconductor industry is staggering. As a consequence, changes in the semiconductor market not only occur extremely rapidly but also anticipate changes in industries evolving at a slower pace. The semiconductor industry is widely recognized as a key driver and technology enabler for the whole electronics value chain. The industry is based on the

foundry model The foundry model is a microelectronics engineering and manufacturing business model consisting of a semiconductor fabrication plant, or foundry, and an integrated circuit design operation, each belonging to separate companies or subsidiaries. ...

, which consists of

semiconductor fabrication plant In the microelectronics industry, a semiconductor fabrication plant (commonly called a fab; sometimes foundry) is a factory where devices such as integrated circuits are manufactured. Fabs require many expensive devices to function. Estimate ...

s (foundries) and integrated circuit design operations, each belonging to separate companies or subsidiaries. Some companies, known as

integrated device manufacturer An integrated device manufacturer (IDM) is a semiconductor company which designs, manufactures, and sells integrated circuit (IC) products. IDM is often used to refer to a company which handles semiconductor manufacturing in-house, compared to ...

s, both design and manufacture semiconductors. The foundry model has resulted in consolidation among foundries. As of 2021, only three firms are able to manufacture the most advanced semiconductors:

TSMC Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC; also called Taiwan Semiconductor) is a Taiwanese multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. It is the world's most valuable semiconductor company, the world' ...

of Taiwan,

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

of South Korea, and

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

of the United States. Part of this is due to the high capital costs of building foundries. TSMC's latest factory, capable of fabricating

3 nm process In semiconductor manufacturing, the 3 nm process is the next die shrink after the 5 nanometer MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor) technology node. , Taiwanese chip manufacturer TSMC plans to put a 3 nm, semic ...

semiconductors and completed in 2020, cost $19.5 billion. Intel is considering outsourcing some production to TSMC. It currently can only produce 10 nm semiconductors, while TSMC and Samsung can both produce 5 nm.

GlobalFoundries GlobalFoundries Inc. (GF or GloFo) is a multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company incorporated in the Cayman Islands and headquartered in Malta, New York. Created by the divestiture of the manufacturing arm of AMD, ...

, an American-headquartered firm, uses a 12 nm process for its most advanced chips due to the rapidly increasing development costs of smaller process nodes.

Semiconductor sales

Sales revenue

Market share

Largest companies

Notes: * Pure-play foundries They specialize in

foundry A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals pr ...

services. They may or may not offer design services to third parties, as well as mask (

photomask A photomask is an opaque plate with holes or transparencies that allow light to shine through in a defined pattern. They are commonly used in photolithography and the production of integrated circuits (ICs or "chips") in particular. Masks are used ...

) making, semiconductor packaging and testing services, which can also be outsourced to other companies. An example is TSMC, which offers design, testing and packaging services, TCE phtomasks, which offers only mask making services, and ChipMOS, which offers only packaging and testing services. *IDMs (

s) They may or may not offer foundry services. *

Fabless Fabless manufacturing is the design and sale of hardware devices and semiconductor chips while outsourcing their fabrication (or ''fab'') to a specialized manufacturer called a semiconductor foundry. These foundries are typically, but not exclu ...

suppliers They do not offer foundry services. They may or may not offer design services to third parties.

Device shipments

Integrated circuits

Discrete devices

Sales

Manufacturers headquartered in the following places are the sales leaders in the pure-play foundry, IDM (integrated device manufacturing),

fabless manufacturing Fabless manufacturing is the design and sale of hardware devices and semiconductor chips while outsourcing their fabrication (or ''fab'') to a specialized manufacturer called a semiconductor foundry. These foundries are typically, but not exclu ...

and

OSAT Osat ( sr-cyr, Осат) is a region in central Podrinje (left of the Drina), in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is situated between the towns of Višegrad and Srebrenica, and includes parts of the municipalities of Bratunac and Srebrenica, in the R ...

(outsourced semiconductor assembly and testing) sectors of the industry. Note that manufacturers headquartered in the United States have fabrication plants across the world, including over 50% in the

Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. Along with th ...

, 39% in the Asia-Pacific region (including 9% in Japan), and 9% in Europe.

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Semiconductor Industry 1960 introductions Semiconductor device fabrication Electronics industry Industries (economics)

External links

"The Silicon Age: Trends in Semiconductor Devices Industry
, 2022