Global semiconductor revenue reach $302 bn: Gartner

The worldwide semiconductor revenue has grown 0.9 percent from 2010, reaching $302 billion in 2011, according to Gartner.

Intel stood at no.1 position for the 20th consecutive year, and witnessed its highest-ever market share at 16.9 percent in the year 2011. The company's revenue for 2011 includes the wireless business unit (BU) purchased from Infineon in the first quarter of the year, a transaction worth about $1.4 billion to Intel's revenue in 2011.

Samsung Electronics came second, holding a market share of 9.7 percent. The company's revenue grew 3.7 percent, despite its exposure to the declining DRAM market. The Korean company's growth was carried as much by mobile phone application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) as by memory.

The strongest growth came from Samsung's relationship with Apple, where it is supplying the A5 processor used in the iPhone 4s and iPad2 media tablet.

As a group, the processor makers- Intel, Qualcomm, Advanced Micro Devices and Nvidia outperformed the rest of the industry. Intel's server business grew despite slowdowns in PC production. Qualcomm was carried by ongoing shifts to 4G and LTE mobile services. Nvidia's Tegra platform supported tablet makers hoping to capture some of the enthusiasm associated with tablet PCs.

Qualcomm's market share stood at 3.3 percent.

Memory makers amongst the top 25 semiconductor suppliers, Hynix, Micron and Elpida, showed revenue declines as a consequence of DRAM price declines and loss of market share in the DRAM space.

SanDisk grew 33.5 percent on demand for flash memory.

''The industry did well in the early part of the year, in many cases entering the year with backlog from an exuberant 2010. But uncertainty about the state of the macroeconomy set in at the midpoint of the year. Consumers held off purchases, and infrastructure expansion plans languished as governments resisted assuming more debt,'' said Stephan Ohr, semiconductor research director at Gartner.

''Equipment inventories began to build as the year progressed, with resulting ripples throughout the semiconductor industry,'' he further added.