United Microelectronics Co (UMC, 聯電) is expected to overtake GlobalFoundries Inc as the world’s third-largest foundry this quarter, as strong demand for display driver and power management chips is estimated to help drive its revenue up 13 percent, market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday.
UMC would see its revenue expand to US$1.57 billion this quarter from a year earlier, with a global market share of 6.9 percent, compared with GlobalFoundries’ estimated revenue of US$1.49 billion, with a market share of 6.6 percent, the Taipei-based researcher said.
TrendForce attributed the growth to rising customer orders for display driver, power management and Internet of Things chips.
Photo: David Chang, EPA-EFE
That would boost the utilization rate at UMC’s 8-inch factories and its chip prices, as well as its shipments of 28-nanometer chips, TrendForce said.
GlobalFoundries is streamlining its factory operations, after selling an 8-inch fab in Singapore to Taiwan’s Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) at the end of last year for US$236 million.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) is expected to retain its top position, with revenue forecast to surge 21 percent year-on-year to US$12.55 billion this quarter and a market share of 55.6 percent.
Samsung Electronics Co would rank fourth, with revenue likely to expand 16.4 percent to US$3.72 billion and a 16.4 percent market share, TrendForce said.
Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯國際), the biggest chipmaker in China, would rank fifth, with a market share of 4.3 percent, as its revenue is predicted to grow 15 percent to US$963 million this quarter, benefiting from rising demand for radio frequency and power management chips, TrendForce said.
However, SMIC’s revenue this quarter would decline 11 percent quarter-on-quarter, as it was forced to stop shipping chips to HiSilicon Technologies Co (海思), the chip designing arm of Huawei Technologies Co (華為), from Sept. 14.
SMIC was also added to a US blacklist due to its ties with the Chinese military.
Tower Semiconductor Ltd, which sells chips under the Tower Jazz brand, seized the sixth spot with revenue of US$340 million, up 11 percent from a year earlier. The Israeli company is expected to have a market share of 1.5 percent this quarter.
Taiwan’s Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (力積電) and Vanguard ranked seventh and eighth, with revenue growing 28 percent and 24 percent to US$312 million and US$297 million respectively this quarter, TrendForce said.
The two firms would have market shares of 1.4 percent and 1.3 percent respectively, it said.
TRADE WAR: Tariffs should also apply to any goods that pass through the new Beijing-funded port in Chancay, Peru, an adviser to US president-elect Donald Trump said A veteran adviser to US president-elect Donald Trump is proposing that the 60 percent tariffs that Trump vowed to impose on Chinese goods also apply to goods from any country that pass through a new port that Beijing has built in Peru. The duties should apply to goods from China or countries in South America that pass through the new deep-water port Chancay, a town 60km north of Lima, said Mauricio Claver-Carone, an adviser to the Trump transition team who served as senior director for the western hemisphere on the White House National Security Council in his first administration. “Any product going
TECH SECURITY: The deal assures that ‘some of the most sought-after technology on the planet’ returns to the US, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said The administration of US President Joe Biden finalized its CHIPS Act incentive awards for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), marking a major milestone for a program meant to bring semiconductor production back to US soil. TSMC would get US$6.6 billion in grants as part of the contract, the US Department of Commerce said in a statement yesterday. Though the amount was disclosed earlier this year as part of a preliminary agreement, the deal is now legally binding — making it the first major CHIPS Act award to reach this stage. The chipmaker, which is also taking up to US$5 billion
High above the sparkling surface of the Athens coastline, the cranes for building the 50-floor luxury tower centerpiece of Greece’s future “smart city” look out over the Saronic Gulf. At their feet, construction machinery stirs up dust. Its backers say the 8 billion euro (US$8.43 billion) project financed by private funds is a symbol of Greece’s renaissance after the years of financial stagnation that saw investors flee the country. However, critics see it more as a future “ghetto for the rich.” It is hard to imagine that 10km from the Acropolis, a new city “three times the size of Monaco”
STRUGGLING BUSINESS: South Korea’s biggest company and semiconductor manufacturer’s buyback fuels concerns that it could be missing out on the AI boom Samsung Electronics Co plans to buy back about 10 trillion won (US$7.2 billion) of its own stock over the next year, putting in motion one of the larger shareholder return programs in its history. South Korea’s biggest company would repurchase the stock in stages over the coming 12 months, it said in a regulatory filing on Friday. As a first step, it would buy back about 3 trillion won of paper starting today up until February next year, all of which it would cancel. The board would deliberate on how best to effect the remaining 7 trillion won of buybacks. The move
RSS