Prior to 2008, 200mm wafers were used in more cases for manufacturing ICs than any other wafer size. However, since 2008, the majority of IC fabrication has taken place on 300mm wafers, according to IC Insights.

Looking at the ranking for 300mm wafers, it is not surprising that the list includes only DRAM and NAND flash memory suppliers like Samsung, Micron, SK Hynix and Toshiba/Western Digital; the world's five largest pure-play foundries TSMC, Globalfoundries, UMC, Powerchip and SMIC; and Intel, the industry's biggest IC manufacturer (in terms of revenue). These companies offer the types of ICs that benefit most from using the largest wafer size available to best amortize the manufacturing cost per die, and have the means to continue investing large sums of money in new and improved 300mm fab capacity, IC Insights indicated.

The number of IC companies that own and operate 300mm fabs, which reached its peak of 29 in 2008, has arrived at 23, IC Insights disclosed.

Meanwhile, the leaders in the 200mm size category consist of pure-play foundries and manufacturers of analog/mixed-signal ICs and microcontrollers, IC Insights said.

The ranking for the smaller wafer sizes (i.e., below 150mm) includes a more diversified group of companies, IC Insights identified. STMicroelectronics has a huge amount of 150mm wafer capacity at its fabs in Singapore, but the company has been busy converting production to 200mm wafers. Another STMicroelectronics 150mm fab in Catania, Italy, is also undergoing a conversion to 200mm, with plans for that project to be completed in 2017.

The number of IC companies that own and operate 200mm fabs, which reached its peak of 76 in 2007, has now fallen to 58, IC Insights said.

A significant trend regarding the industry's IC manufacturing base, and a challenging one from the perspective of companies that supply equipment and materials to chipmakers, is that as the industry moves IC fabrication onto larger wafers in bigger fabs, the group of IC manufacturers continues to shrink in number, IC Insights noted.

Less than half the number of companies own and operate 300mm wafer fabs compared to 200mm fabs, and the distribution of worldwide 300mm wafer capacity among manufacturers is becoming increasingly top-heavy, according to IC Insights.