Europe, Japan fall in 2014 chip R&D spend
Fabless chip company Qaulcomm is increased its spending on semiconductor R&D by 62 percent in 2014 as it pursues market and R&D spend leader Intel, according to data from IC Insights. However, Europe and Japan each had only a single representative company in the top 10 and both dropped down the ranking compared with 2013.
The market research firm has listed the top ten semiconductor R&D spenders for 2013 and 2014 and this reveals that Intel’s R&D expenditures were more than twice those of its nearest competitor. Second-placed Qualcomm had the largest percentage increase while tenth-ranked Nvidia had the highest R&D/sales ratio.
Top 10 semiconductor R&D spenders for 2014. For enlarged figure go here
Among the top 10 R&D spenders in 2014, five were based in the U.S., three from the Asia-Pacific region, and Japan and Europe each had one company represented. The list includes five IDMs, four fabless suppliers, and foundry operator TSMC.
Intel’s spending accounted for 36 percent of the top-10 spending and 21 percent of the global total for 2014 worldwide semiconductor R&D expenditures of $56 billion.
The industry’s two largest IDMs—Intel and Samsung—continue to emphasize internal production capacity for advanced ICs in leading-edge wafer fabs. Consequently, spending on R&D programs at the two IC giants has kept growing, but at different rates in recent years. This is partly due to Samsung’s ability to hold down some costs by participating in IBM’s Common Platform joint development alliance, which also includes GlobalFoundries as an R&D partner.
Fabless suppliers Nvidia, Qualcomm, and Broadcom had the highest R&D spending as a percent of sales ratios in 2014 at 31.3, 28.5, and 28.2 percent, respectively. However, Broadcom’s spending in 2014 declined for the first time since 2003, while Nvidia’s 2014 spending increased just 3 percent.
Five other IC companies had R&D spending of at least $1.0 billion in 2014 but did not make the top 10 ranking. These included Texas Instruments, $1.36 billion; SK Hynix, $1.33 billion; Marvell, $1.18 billion; AMD, $1.06 billion; and Avago, $1.00 billion.
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