Samsung, TSMC and Micron rank top three in the world's leading wafer foundries in 2020

IC Insights recently released the "Global Wafer Capacity Report 2021-2025", which lists the world's 25 largest 200mm equivalent wafer monthly installed capacity rankings as of December 2020.

The top five wafer capacity manufacturers have a monthly production capacity of at least 1.5 million wafers. In 2020, the total capacity of the top five manufacturers accounted for 54% of the global wafer capacity, up one percentage point from the previous year. In contrast, in 2009, the top 10 wafer capacity accounted for 54% of the global total capacity, and the top 5 wafer capacity accounted for 36%.

The wafer production capacity of manufacturers after the top five has declined rapidly. Intel (8884k wafers/month), UMC (7772k wafers/month), GlobalFoundries, Texas Instruments and SMIC are among the top ten.

The report shows that Samsung has the largest installed wafer capacity, with 3.1 million 200mm equivalent wafers per month, which is equivalent to 14.7% of the global total production capacity. TSMC ranks second, with a monthly production capacity of about 2.7 million wafers, accounting for 13.1% of the global total production capacity. Micron ranks third, with a monthly production capacity of slightly more than 1.9 million wafers, accounting for 9.3% of the world. SK Hynix ranks fourth, with a monthly production capacity of nearly 1.9 million wafers, accounting for 9% of the world, of which more than 80% are used for DRAM and NAND chips. Ranked fifth is Kioxia, with a monthly production capacity of 1.6 million wafers, accounting for 7.7% of the world, including a large number of NAND chips provided to Western Digital.

The five largest pure-play foundries in the industry—TSMC, UMC, GlobalFoundries, SMIC, and Powerchip (including Nexchip)—are all in the top 12. As of December 2020, the total capacity of these five foundries was approximately 5.1 million wafers per month, accounting for approximately 24% of the total global foundry capacity.