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There were no changes in the positions of the top five biggest semiconductor companies by revenue, according to iSuppli Corp’s release of its 2007 Top 25 semiconductor suppliers list by revenue. Intel, Samsung, Texas Instruments, Toshiba and STMicroelectronics retained the 1 to 5 slots respectively. However, two of the top five companies (Samsung and TI) posted revenue declines in 2007 compared to 2006. iSuppli does not include foundries in its semiconductor suppliers rankings table. 

Intel saw revenues increase 8 percent in 2007, while the overall microprocessor market (revenue) grew by only 2.1 percent, due mainly to the year-long price competition with AMD. Indeed, it was AMD that would seem to have suffered most with revenues declining significantly to $5.9 billion, compared to $7.5 billion in 2006 - a 21.2 percent decline. As a result AMD dropped 2 positions to No.10 in 2007.

 
 

Certain Japan-based companies had a stellar 2007, mainly due to the success of Sony’s PS3 gaming console. Sony itself saw revenue growth of 55.5 percent in 2007, shooting the company into the top 10 (No. 8) from fourteenth position in 2006. Toshiba and nVidia also benefited from supplying chips for the PS3. Although Toshiba’s ranking position did not improve, it significantly closed the gap on third-placed Texas Instruments, which saw revenues decline 2.6 percent compared to Toshiba’s 20.2 percent growth.

Another notable upwardly mobile company was Infineon Technologies, which reached ninth position in 2007 compared to fourteenth in 2006. Infineon saw a revenue rise of 21.1 percent in 2007 compared to 2006 as it reorganized and made strategic acquisitions last year.