Rambus : DRAM vendors top semiconductor industry

Worldwide semiconductor revenue reportedly totaled $339.8 billion in 2014, marking a 7.9 percent increase from $315 billion in 2013.

According to Gartner, the top 25 semiconductor vendors' combined revenue increased 11.7 percent, which was more than the overall industry's growth. More specifically, the top 25 vendors accounted for 72.1 percent of total market revenue, up from 69.7 percent in 2013.

"As a group, DRAM vendors outperformed the rest of the semiconductor industry," said Andrew Norwood, research vice president at Gartner.

"This follows the trend seen in 2013 due to a booming DRAM market that saw revenue increase 31.7 percent during 2014 as the undersupply and stable pricing continued."

As Norwood notes, 2013 saw revenue decline in key device categories, including ASIC, discretes and microcomponents. However, all device categories experienced positive growth in 2014.

"[Yet], none could match the growth of the memory market, which grew 16.9 percent in 2014," Norwood explained.

"Excluding memory revenue, growth for the remainder of the market reached 5.4 percent, but this is much better than 2013 growth of 0.8 percent for nonmemory revenue."

According to Loren Shalinsky, a Strategic Development Director at Rambus, the industry has observed significant increases in the memory market since 2012.

"Although ASP stabilization has played a major role in the revenue rise, it is important to acknowledge additional contributing trends," said Shalinsky.

"For example, DRAM bit growth remains robust, continuing at growth rates approaching 30% per year. This confirms end applications that require DRAM are growing."

Moreover, says Shalinsky, DRAM deployment is indisputably ubiquitous, with memory benefiting from the growth of diverse markets including smartphones, tablets, PCs and datacenters.

"Consumer applications are also demanding higher bandwidth memory as the number of CPU cores increase," he concluded. "The same can be said for displays which are moving towards full HD capable, and ultimately, full 4K Ultra HD."