Samsung leads chip capex ranking
Despite strong 2014 spending increases led by SanDisk and Micron Technology the top five ranking is unchanged, led by Samsung and Intel with spends of over $11 billion each.
The lead foundry TSMC is ranked third with slightly less than $10 billion and collectively these three companies will be responsible for 52 percent of a total semiconductor industry capex in 2014. The top five companies are responsible for 66 percent of the forecast total spend of $62.23 billion.
Nine of the top 10 companies are forecast to spend more than $1 billion in 2014 which represents a threshold of sustainability in leading-edge chip manufacturing. That said tenth-ranked SMIC with an annual increase of 35 percent to follow on from a 30 percent increase in spending in 2013 is striving to join the billion-dollar capex club.
SanDisk cut back its capital spending by 28 percent in 2012 and by 12 percent in 2013, according to IC Insights. Now it is set to implement a capital spending percentage increase of 86 percent, needed to expand production of advanced 3D NAND flash memory with its manufacturing partner Toshiba.
Memory maker Micron Technology Inc. is also set to increase spending by more than $1 billion, a 58 percent jump, as is pure-play foundry GlobalFoundries.
However, for consistent spending Samsung and Intel remain the pre-eminent. Over the period 2012 to 2014 Samsung is forecast to spend $35.3 billion, with about 60% of this amount targeting memory production, while Intel is forecast to be second to Samsung in total outlays over this same time with $32.6 billion in dedicated to capital expenditures. Such spending is sufficient for each company to construct and equip several leading-edge 300mm wafer fabs.
The capex of the others category is set to grow by 3 percent in 2014 and IC Insights expects it to increase at a much slower rate than the overall market as most of these "other" companies are now implementing a fab-lite or fabless business model for IC production.
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