Samsung to unseat Intel for chip crown
Forecasts show Intel will lose its place at the top of the computer chip market for the first time in 24 years
By Kang Seung-woo
Samsung is expected to become the largest chipmaker in the world amid rising demand for memory chips, bringing to a halt Intel’s decades-long dominance in the semiconductor industry, according to market reports, Sunday.
Since Intel released the Pentium CPU for PCs in 1993, the U.S.-based company has dominated the market without losing the top spot. Back then, Samsung was the No. 7 player in the world.
According to a recent report by Japan’s Nomura Securities, Samsung is forecast to chalk up US$15.1 billion (17.2 trillion won) in chip sales for the second quarter of the year in comparison with Intel’s US$14.4 billion.
The Korean company is also expected to outpace its American rival in its full-year forecast — US$63.6 billion to US$60.5.
The Japanese brokerage house said surging demand for DRAM and solid state drives has led to a price hike, adding that the memory chip market has outgrown the CPU market.
DRAMs are used widely in personal computers and solid state drives are emerging as the replacement of hard disk drives.