Fabless Q1 sales down 8% sequentially, almost flat y/y

By Colleen Taylor, Contributing Editor -- Electronic News, 6/19/2007

According to the latest report from industry group Fabless Semiconductor Association (FSA), the fabless industry's revenue totaled $11.7 billion in Q1—comprising 19 percent of the semiconductor industry's sales total of $61 billion, FSA said.

It seems that although the performance was strong for the sector, fabless companies were still not immune to the troubles the entire industry has been weathering of late: worldwide fabless industry revenue fell eight percent quarter-over-quarter and 0.6 percent year-over-year in Q1, FSA said.

Communications chipmaker Qualcomm Inc. headed up the FSA's ranking of the top fabless companies by revenue for Q1, raking in revenues of $1.3 billion during the quarter while tackling a host of ongoing legal battles.  Its rival Broadcom came in second in FSA's rankings, with $901 million in revenue during Q1.

Nvidia Corp. took third place with $844 million in revenues, followed by fourth-ranked SanDisk Corp. with $786 million.  Marvell Technology Group rounded out the top five with $635 million in Q1 revenues, FSA said.

LSI Logic ranked sixth with $465 million in Q1, MediaTek Inc. ranked seventh with $450 million, and Xilinx Inc. ranked eighth with $443 million.  Ninth place was taken by Avago Technologies, which pulled in revenues of $386 million in Q1, while tenth-ranked Altera pulled in $305 million.