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In IC Insights’ May update to The McClean Report, the market research firm highlights a major disruption taking place amongst the top 20 semiconductor supplier rankings after collating revenue results from the first quarter of 2008. Leading the pack in sales growth is TSMC, which saw sales grow by 44 percent compared to the same quarter in 2007. TSMC move up the rankings slightly, from 6th position to 5th, according to IC Insights. Also moving up one place in 1Q08 were Renesas, Sony, and Infineon.

Two Japanese semiconductor suppliers faired well in the quarter, with Panasonic (formerly Matsushita) climbing three places and moving into 19th position while NEC moved up two positions in the ranking from 15th to 13th.

Two fiercely competing fabless companies, Qualcomm and Broadcom, saw a jump in their rankings positions. Qualcomm used a 29% percent year-over-year 1Q08 growth rate to jump four spots and rank as the 10th largest semiconductor supplier in 1Q08. The third largest fabless supplier, Broadcom, also jumped four positions in the ranking and is now positioned as the 20th largest semiconductor supplier in the world.

Not surprisingly, memory suppliers, with the exception of Samsung Electronics, underperformed with negative growth and a drop in their ranking positions. Hynix and Micron each fell two spots while some of the major DRAM and flash suppliers (e.g., Qimonda, Elpida, Spansion, Powerchip, Nanya) are no longer registered as top 20 suppliers!

Other fallers included NXP, which fell three positions in the 1Q08 ranking to 14th from 11th. AMD’s sales may have increased but the company still slid two positions from 10th to 12th. STMicroelectronics fell one position in the ranking to fill the 6th spot, after separating memory sales into the newly formed Numonyx.

According to IC Insights,1Q sales of above $1 billion was the main consideration for inclusion in the top 20 rankings table.