Semiconductor device fabrication
MOSFET scaling (process nodes)
020 μm – 1968 010 μm – 1971 006 μm – 1974 003 μm – 1977  1.5 μm – 1981 001 μm – 1984 800 nm – 1987 600 nm – 1990 350 nm – 1993 250 nm – 1996 180 nm – 1999 130 nm – 2001 090 nm – 2003 065 nm – 2005 045 nm – 2007 032 nm – 2009 028 nm – 2010 022 nm – 2012 014 nm – 2014 010 nm – 2016 007 nm – 2018 005 nm – 2020 003 nm – 2022
Future 002 nm ~ 2025 001 nm ~ 2027
Half-nodes Density CMOS Device (multi-gate) Moore's law Transistor count Semiconductor Industry Nanoelectronics
v t e

Thesemiconductor industry is the aggregate of companies engaged in thedesign andfabrication ofsemiconductors andsemiconductor devices, such astransistors andintegrated circuits. Its roots can be traced to the invention of the transistor byShockley,Brattain, andBardeen atBell Labs in 1948.^[1][2] Bell Labs licensed the technology for $25,000,^[3] and soon many companies, includingMotorola (1952),^[4]Shockley Semiconductor (1955),Sylvania, Centralab,Fairchild Semiconductor andTexas Instruments were making transistors. In 1958Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments andRobert Noyce of Fairchild independently invented theIntegrated Circuit, a method of producing multiple transistors on a single "chip" of Semiconductor material. This kicked off a number of rapid advances infabrication technology leading to the exponential growth insemiconductor device production, known asMoore's law that has persisted over the past six or so decades. The industry's annual semiconductor sales revenue has since grown to over$481 billion, as of 2018.^[5]

In 2010, the semiconductor industry had the highest intensity of Research & Development in theEU and ranked second after Biotechnology in the EU,United States andJapan combined.^[6]

The semiconductor industry is in turn the driving force behind the widerelectronics industry,^[7] with annualpower electronics sales of £135 billion ($216 billion) as of 2011,^[8] annualconsumer electronics sales expected to reach$2.9 trillion by 2020,^[9]tech industry sales expected to reach$5 trillion in 2019,^[10] ande-commerce with over$29 trillion in 2017.^[11] In 2019, 32.4% of the semiconductor market segment was for networks and communications devices.^[12]

In 2021, the sales of semiconductors reached a record $555.9 billion, up 26.2%, with sales inChina reaching $192.5 billion, according to theSemiconductor Industry Association. A record 1.15trillion semiconductor units were shipped in the calendar year.^[13] The semiconductor industry is projected to reach $726.73 billion by 2027.^[14]

The global semiconductor industry is dominated by companies from theUnited States,Taiwan,South Korea,Japan and theNetherlands, withIsrael andGermany having significant presence in the field.^[15]

Unique features of the industry include continuous growth but in a cyclical pattern with highvolatility.^[16] 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.^{[citation needed]}

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.^[17]

Prior to the 1980s, the semiconductor industry was vertically integrated. Semiconductor companies both designed and manufactured chips in their own facilities. In many cases, this included inventing new processes, refining and purifying source chemicals and silicon wafers, and even manufacturing equipment, like furnaces, lithography tools and etchers. These companies also carried out the assembly and testing of their chips. Over time, many of these functions were outsourced, such that today semiconductor manufacturers rely on a complex supply chain to provide wafers, high purity source chemicals, and processing equipment. Further, starting with LSI in 1969, the industry has seen the emergence ofFabless Semiconductor Companies that focus solely on chip design and rely on other companies to manufacture their designs. Initially, these other companies wereintegrated device manufacturers (IDMs), companies that also designed and manufactured their own products, and thus were often competitors of the Fabless companies. But, by the mid-1980'sTSMC andUMC emerged asfoundries, specializing solely in the manufacture of other companies' designs.

Today, much of the industry is based on thefoundry model, which consists ofsemiconductor fabrication plants (foundries) and integrated circuit design operations, each belonging to separate companies or subsidiaries. Some companies, known asintegrated device manufacturers, both design and manufacture semiconductors. The foundry model has resulted inconsolidation among foundries. As of 2021, only three firms are able to manufacture the most advanced semiconductors:TSMC of Taiwan,Samsung of South Korea, andIntel of the United States.^[18] Part of this is due to the high capital costs of building foundries. TSMC's latest factory, capable of fabricating3 nm process semiconductors and completed in 2020, cost $19.5 billion.^[18]

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.^[18]GlobalFoundries, 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.^[19]

Major semiconductor companies

Name	Country	Manufacturer type[36]	Hardware products
Samsung Electronics	South Korea	IDM	NAND flash memory,DRAM,CMOS sensor,RF transceivers,OLED display,SSD
Intel	United States	IDM	x86-64microprocessor,GPU,SSD,DRAM
TSMC	Taiwan	Pure-play
SK Hynix[a]	South Korea	IDM	flash memory,DRAM,SSD,CMOS sensor
Micron[b]	United States	IDM	DRAM, NAND flash, SSD,NOR flash, Managed NAND, multichip packages
Qualcomm	United States	Fabless	RF module,digital signal processor,Snapdragonsystem on chip
Broadcom	United States	Fabless	Broadband/Wi-Fi/Bluetooth modems, Custom DSP & ARM CPUs
Kioxia[c]	Japan	IDM	NAND flash memory,SSD
Texas Instruments (TI)	United States	IDM	Microcontroller,SoC,DSP, Amplifiers, data converters
Analog Devices[d]	United States	IDM	Amplifiers, data converters, audio & video products, RF & microwave, sensors,MEMS
Qorvo	United States	IDM	RF module, filters, Amplifiers,PMIC
Microchip	United States	IDM	Microcontrollers and analog semiconductors
NXP	Netherlands	IDM	PMICMedia processor,MIFARE,LPC
MediaTek	Taiwan	Fabless	SoC,chipset,CPU,GPU,DSP
Infineon[e]	Germany	IDM	Microcontrollers andpower semiconductor devices
Bosch	Germany	IDM
STMicroelectronics	France/ Italy	IDM	ASIC,Microcontrollers
Sony	Japan	IDM	Active-pixel sensor,NAND flash memory
ARM	United Kingdom	Fabless	Instruction set architecture
AMD	United States	Fabless	x86-64 CPU, GPU, motherboard chipset, SDRAM
Nvidia	United States	Fabless	GPU
ON Semiconductor	United States	IDM
UMC	Taiwan	Pure-play
Apple	United States	Fabless	Apple silicon
IBM	United States	Fabless	IBM Power microprocessors,z/Architecture
Mitsubishi Electric	Japan	IDM	Power semiconductor devices
Tower Semiconductor	Israel	IDM
Xilinx	United States	Fabless	programmable logic device
SMIC	China	Pure-play
Wolfspeed	United States	IDM	SiC
Nordic Semiconductor	Norway	Fabless	Bluetooth, Wifi, Low Power Cellular
ScaleFlux	United States	Fabless	NVMeSSD,SoC

Notes:

• Pure-play foundries – They specialize infoundry services. They may or may not offer design services to third parties, as well as mask (photomask) 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 photomasks, which offers only mask making services, and ChipMOS, which offers only packaging and testing services.
• IDMs (integrated device manufacturers) – They may or may not offer foundry services.
• Fabless suppliers – They do not offer foundry services. They may or may not offer design services to third parties.

Manufacturers headquartered in the following places are the sales leaders in thepure-play foundry,IDM (integrated device manufacturing),fabless manufacturing andOSAT (outsourced semiconductor assembly and testing) sectors of the industry.^[36]

Rank	Foundry	IDM	Fabless	OSAT
1	Taiwan	United States	United States	Taiwan
2	United States	South Korea	Taiwan	United States
3	China	Japan	China	China
4	South Korea	European Union	European Union	Singapore
5	Israel	Taiwan	Japan	Japan

Manufacturers headquartered in the United States have fabrication plants across the world, including over 50% in theAmericas, 39% in theAsia-Pacific region (including 9% in Japan), and 9% in Europe.^[36]

• Electronic design automation
• Electronics and semiconductor manufacturing industry in India
• Electronics and semiconductor manufacturing industry in Japan
• List of EDA companies
• List of semiconductor fabrication plants
• Semiconductor consolidation
• Semiconductor device fabrication
• Semiconductor fabrication plant
• Semiconductor Industry Association
• Semiconductor industry in India
• Semiconductor industry in Japan
• Semiconductor industry in Taiwan
• Semiconductor industry in China
• Semiconductor industry in South Korea
• Transistor count

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

• Semiconductor industry
• Industries (economics)

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