The world’s top 10 foundries’ output value increased 8.3 percent quarter-on-quarter to $29.55 billion in Q4 2021, according to TrendForce’s research.
The report said the shortage of certain components for TVs and laptops has eased. Peripheral materials derived from mature process such as PMIC, Wi-Fi, and MCU are still in short supply.
Average selling price (ASP) is increasing. In the fourth quarter, more expensive wafers were produced in succession led by TSMC.
TrendForce said the output value of the world’s top ten foundries will maintain a growth trend in 1Q22 but appreciation in ASP will be the primary driver of the growth.
TSMC’s 4Q21 revenue reached $15.75 billion, a QoQ increase of 5.8 percent. Though 5nm revenue rose thanks to the new iPhone, 7/6nm revenue dropped due to a weak Chinese smartphone market.
Samsung strengthened 4Q21 revenue to $5.54 billion, a quarterly increase of 15.3 percent owing to the completion of new advanced 5/4nm process capacity and the mass production of new flagship products from major client Qualcomm.
UMC’s revenue rose 5.8 percent QoQ to $2.12 billion.
GlobalFoundries revenue rose 8.6 percent QoQ to $1.85 billion.
GlobalFoundries benefited from the release of new production capacity, product mix optimization, and new long-term agreement (LTA) pricing, pushing up ASP performance.
SMIC posted 4Q21 revenue of US$1.58 billion, 11.6 percent QoQ, due to mounting demand for products such as HV, MCU, Ultra Low Power Logic, and Specialty Memory as well as factors such as product mix adjustment and appreciating ASP.
The foundries ranked 6th to 9th are HuaHong Group, PSMC, Vanguard International Semiconductor (VIS), and Tower Semiconductor (Tower), respectively.
