Worldwide semiconductor revenue grew by 0.9 per cent to USD 302 billion in 2011, according to preliminary results from Gartner, Inc. After a strong start to the year, worries about the strength of the macro-economy slowed equipment and semiconductor orders in 2011.

“The industry did well in the early part of the year, in many cases entering the year with backlog from an exuberant 2010,” said Mr Stephan Ohr, Semiconductor Research Director, at Gartner.

“But uncertainty about the state of the macro-economy set in at the midpoint of the year. Consumers held off purchases, and infrastructure expansion plans languished as Governments resisted assuming more debt. Equipment inventories began to build as the year progressed, with resulting ripples throughout the semiconductor industry,” it said.

Intel held the No. 1 position in the semiconductor market for the 20th consecutive year and 2011 marks Intel’s highest-ever market share of 16.9 per cent. Its previous best was achieved in 1998, when it commanded 16.3 per cent of the market.

Intel saw strong growth in the first half of the year as the PC market stocked up inventory in anticipation of a strong second half of the year. Intel server products Westmere and Nahelem had a good year. Intel’s revenues for 2011 include earnings from the wireless business unit (BU) purchased from Infineon in the first quarter of the year in a transaction worth about $1.4 billion.

At the No. 2 spot, Samsung Electronics saw its revenue grow slightly above the industry average despite its exposure to the declining DRAM market.

Samsung’s NAND business saw healthy revenue growth, but this was broadly in line with the overall NAND market growth.

Samsung’s non-memory business was by far the strongest growth area for the company, with application-specific devices, particularly wireless applications processors, witnessing robust demand.

The strongest growth came from Samsung’s relationship with Apple, to which it supplies the A5 processor used in the iPhone 4S and iPad2 media tablet.

Texas Instruments, at the No. 3 position, has arguably the strongest manufacturing capability in the analogue semiconductor industry — a consequence of acquisitions made in 2010.

However, uncertainty in the macroeconomic environment affected revenue for all analogue suppliers as orders slowed in the third quarter of 2011 and again in the fourth. The slowdown for power management devices — important in the construction of new data centres and in the deployment of personal computers — was not as severe as the slowdown in the amplifiers and data converters segment.

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, while Qualcomm was carried by ongoing shifts to 4G and LTE mobile services. Nvidia ramped up its Tegra platform to support tablet-makers, hoping to capture some of the enthusiasm associated with tablet PCs.

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