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TAP TIMES -39-
TSMC jumps (from 38)
disk drives (HDDs) making up about half
of the company’s sales and expected to
show only a modest decline in 3Q, IC
Insights believes that its NAND flash busi-
ness is likely to register a drop of at least
20% this quarter.
• In early September, Kyung Kye-hyun,
Samsung’s co-CEO and head of its semi-
conductor unit said, “The second half of
this year looks bad, and as of now, next
year doesn’t really seem to show a clear
momentum for much improvement.”
Nanya gives insight
• Taiwan-based Nanya is a relatively minor
player in the global DRAM market, but its
monthly sales data provides some insight
into how swiftly the DRAM market can shift
gears from boom to bust.
As shown in the Figure (prior page), the
company’s August 2022 DRAM sales, when
shown in U.S. dollars, were 39% of what
they were in August 2021 and down 53%
from March’s sales, just five months ago
With the memory market currently in a
free-fall, IC Insights expects foundry giant
TSMC to surpass Samsung and take over
the top spot in the semiconductor com-
pany sales ranking in 3Q22 .
Intel moves to third place
As shown, Intel is expected to move to
the third position in the ranking with 3Q22
sales that are 26% less than TSMC’s.
Illustrating the swiftness of TSMC’s rise
to the top, TSMC was ranked as the third
largest semiconductor supplier in the world
in 2021 and had sales that were 31% less
than Samsung’s.
The sheer magnitude of TSMC’s semicon-
end-user of these devices. AMD resells
these processors to electronic system pro-
OCTOBER 2022
Source; IC Insights, company reports
ductor sales comes more into focus when
one considers the “final” sales of company.
The “final” sales figure for a pure-play
foundry like TSMC is about 2x the total
foundry sales number.
The 2x multiplier estimates the semi-
conductor sales amount sold to the final
customer (i.e., the electronic system pro-
ducer).
For example, fabless company AMD pur-
chases processors from TSMC but AMD is
not the final end-user of these devices.
AMD resells these processors to electronic
system producers at a much higher price
than it paid TSMC for the parts.
As a result, a 2x multiplier, which assumes
a 50% gross margin for the foundry’s cus-
tomers (e.g., AMD), can be used to arrive
at a “final” semiconductor market sales
figure for TSMC.
Using a “final” sales figure estimate for
TSMC puts its 2021 semiconductor sales at
$113.7 billion and $40.4 billion for 3Q22!
To put the company’s “final” 2021 semi-
conductor sales figure into perspective, at
$113.7 billion, TSMC’s “final” sales are es-
timated to have represented 18.5% of the
world’s semiconductor market last year.
Moreover, IC Insights believes that this
percentage has a good chance of rising to
25% in 3Q22. icinsights.com