Semiconductor sales: A big bite of the “Apple”
Semiconductor sales: A big bite of the “Apple”
Despite America’s tepid economy, one U.S. company continues its reign as the World Champion of the tech industry: Apple.
But, this time it is also becoming one of the world’s largest customers in the area of Semiconductor purchases.
In fact, Apple joined two other companies Dell and Hp in forming 30% of the top 10 semi-conductor purchases in 2011. The last two came in at positions three and four respectively.
Not bad for a super power considered to be on the brink of a lengthy economic decline! This total sector revenue increased by $1.8 billion worldwide, largely driven by sales in Smartphones, media tablets and solid-state drives (SSD).
The latest news from research firm Gartner, is that Apple climbed from third position to number 1 spot with the release of the Apple iPhone and the growing interest in the Macbook Air.
And, why is this information so important? Well semiconductors are found inside the heart of all microprocessor chips and transistors. In fact, according to How Stuff Works, it’s used in anything that’s computerized or uses radio waves.
Intel first distinguished itself by its ability to make semiconductors in 1969, including the 3101 Schottky TTL bipolar 64-bit static random-access memory (SRAM).
In 2011, Intel Corporation again took the number 1 ranking in terms of international semiconductor manufacturing market share, with almost 16% (see chart below).
Interestingly, the same way that regulators are today attempting to combat anti-piracy with the controversial SOPA bill, they also performed similar actions in 1984 with the Semiconductor Chip Protection Act, which prohibits chip piracy or the unauthorized copying and distribution of semiconductor chip products copied from the original creators of such works.
As a side-note, ZDNet reports that China is using domestic chips to build its latest supercomputer, called Sunway Bluelight MPP at the National Supercomputer Center in Jinan, China. It used 8,700 ShenWei chip to drive its electronic heart. There is a thus a long-term struggle underway for chip dominance as the Far East improves its manufacturing capabilities.
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