The world's top-20 semiconductor companies' sales are forecast to be flat in 2015, 1pp higher than the growth rate expected for the total worldwide semiconductor industry, according to IC Insights. But using the 2014 exchange rates per US dollar, the combined top-20 semiconductor suppliers are forecast to show a 4% increase.

The strong US dollar is also forecast to lower the total worldwide semiconductor market growth rate by 3pp to negative 1% in 2015, IC Insights indicated. The continuing strength of the US dollar throughout 2015 is one of the reasons IC Insights lowered its IC market forecast for this year from 1% to negative 1%, the research firm added.

Although the top-20 semiconductor companies are forecast to register zero growth in 2015, there is expected to be a 52-point spread between Avago, the fastest growing company on the list (23%), and Renesas, the worst performing supplier (negative 22% in US dollars, negative 11% in yen) in the ranking, IC Insights said.

Intel's semiconductor sales were 36% greater than Samsung's in 2014. The delta is forecast to drop by a whopping 15pp to only 21% in 2015, IC Insights observed.

One new entrant is forecast to break into the top-20 ranking in 2015 - Taiwan-based pure-play foundry UMC, which is expected to replace AMD, IC Insights noted. AMD is forecast to have a particularly rough 2015 with its sales expected to drop 28% to about US$4 billion.

The pending mergers of Avago and Broadcom, and NXP and Freescale will have a significant impact on future top-20 rankings, according to IC Insights. The combination of Avago and Broadcom's sales in 2015 (US$15.4 billion) is forecast to be enough to move the company into the sixth spot while the combined 2015 sales of NXP and Freescale (US$10.2 billion) are forecast to be enough to move the new entity into the eighth position. IC Insights believes that additional acquisitions and mergers over the next few years are likely to continue to shake up the future top-20 semiconductor company rankings.