IC designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) dropped out of the list of the top 10 semiconductor firms in the world in the first quarter of this year, according to market information advisory firm IC Insights.
Last year, MediaTek ranked as the 10th-largest IC firm in the world with total sales of US$8.8 billion, data compiled by IC Insights showed.
The data did not include pure wafer foundry operators such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) and smaller rival United Microelectronics Corp (聯電), IC Insights said.
While IC Insights did not release MediaTek’s sales data for the January-to-March period, the Taiwanese IC designer late last month said its revenue for the first quarter totaled NT$56.08 billion (US$1.85 billion), down 18.3 percent from the previous quarter, but up 0.3 percent from a year earlier.
MediaTek’s first-quarter sales were far behind those of US-based Intel Corp, the top IC firm in the rankings, which posted US$14.2 billion in revenue, but much closer to the 10th-largest supplier, Germany-based Infineon Technologies AG, with US$1.9 billion in sales.
South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Corp came in second with US$13.6 billion in sales after IC Insights excluded the firm’s pure wafer foundry operations.
As Intel only has a 4 percent lead over Samsung, it is possible for the South Korean firm to overtake the US semiconductor giant to become the largest IC vendor in the world in the second quarter, IC Insights said.
South Korean DRAM chipmaker SK Hynix Inc took third place in the first quarter, up from fifth last year, benefiting from tight supply in memory chips that boosted product prices. Hynix’s sales hit US$5.5 billion in the first quarter.
US-based DRAM chipmaker Micron Technology Inc rose two notches from last year to fourth in the first quarter, also on the back of higher memorychip prices, with sales at US$4.9 billion, IC Insights said.
US IC designers Broadcom Inc and Qualcomm Inc came in fifth and sixth, down one and three places from last year with sales of US$4.1 billion and US$3.7 billion respectively.
US-based Texas Instruments Inc took seventh place with US$3.2 billion in sales, ahead of Japan’s Toshiba Corp with US$2.9 billion, Dutch-based NXP Semiconductors NV with US$2.2 billion and Infineon.
The top 10 firms accounted for 56 percent of total revenue of US$99.6 billion posted by the global semiconductor sector, excluding pure wafer foundry operations, in the first quarter, IC Insights said.
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