China steps up fabless game

By Peter Clarke, EETimes, Apr. 12, 2016 – 

Europe's market share as a supplier of fabless chips to the world market has halved to 2 percent over the last five years while China's has doubled to 10 percent, according to market researcher IC Insights.

China's growth was partly at the expense of the US, which dipped from 69 percent in 2010 to 62 percent in 2015.

China's 10 percent fabless share compares with 8 percent in 2014. The 62 percent held by the US compares with 64 percent in 2014. Taiwan held steady at 18 percent while Europe fell from 3 percent in 2014 to 2 percent in 2015.

Because IC Insights measures IC sales in relation to headquarters location sales from Samsung's wafer fab in Austin, Texas, are counted as South Korean sales and Europe could get a minor boost as Freescale's chip sales, previously attributed to the US are counted as European because of NXP ownership. The totals do not include foundry sales.

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