Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) moved up in a ranking of top research-and-development (R&D) spenders in the global semiconductor industry, according to a report released on Tuesday by market research firm IC Insights.
TSMC’s 15 percent R&D spending increase last year, along with a decline in spending at Toshiba Corp and STMicroelectronics NV, helped the Taiwanese company climb two slots to fifth place in the annual ranking.
MediaTek, whose R&D spending increased 29 percent last year, rose from 14th place in 2013 to ninth last year following its acquisition of fellow Taiwanese fabless supplier MStar Semiconductor Inc early last year.
Among the top 10 R&D spenders, five were based in the US and three were from the Asia-Pacific region excluding Japan.
The other two were from Europe and Japan.
Intel topped all chip companies in R&D spending, accounting for 36 percent of the R&D expenditures of the 10 top-ranked firms and 21 percent of the US$56 billion in total worldwide semiconductor R&D spending, IC Insights said.
Fabless integrated circuit supplier Qualcomm Inc kept pace with Intel to remain the second-largest spender, a position it first achieved in 2012.
The San Diego-based company had the largest percentage increase among the top 10 with a 62 percent boost in R&D spending.
Samsung Electronics Co trailed in third and Broadcom Corp was ranked fourth.
TSMC’s rank put it ahead of Toshiba in sixth, STMicroelectronics in seventh, Micron Technology Inc in eighth and Nvidia Corp in 10th, the report showed.
Meanwhile, TSMC and Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) were the only two Taiwanese companies to be ranked among Fortune magazine’s most admired firms this year.
The ranking released on Tuesday showed that TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, fell one spot to fourth place in the semiconductors category this year.
Asustek, which did not make the list last year, ranked sixth this year in the computers category.
Apple Inc held the top spot in the overall ranking of Fortune’s most admired companies for the eighth year in a row. The iPhone maker this month became the first company to attain a market value of more than US$700 billion.
US search engine Google Inc ranked second, followed by Berkshire Hathaway Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Starbucks Corp.
Fortune rates companies on nine key attributes related to corporate reputation: innovation, people management, use of corporate assets, social responsibility, quality of management, financial soundness, long-term investment value, quality of products and services, and global competitiveness.
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