Intel’s lackluster performance and surging DRAM market forecast to put Samsung in the lead.
IC Insights is currently assembling its 1Q21 top-25 semiconductor supplier ranking, which includes company sales forecasts for 2Q21 that will be presented later this month in the May Update, the third monthly Update to the 500-page, 2021 edition of The McClean Report—A Complete Analysis and Forecast of the Integrated Circuit Industry.
As shown in Figure 1, Intel was locked in as the world’s top semiconductor manufacturer from 1993 through 2016. However, after nearly a quarter of a century, the semiconductor industry saw a new #1 supplier beginning in 2017 when the memory market surged and Samsung displaced Intel. This unseating marked a milestone achievement not only for Samsung, but also for all other competing semiconductor producers who had tried for years to supplant Intel as the world’s largest supplier.
