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Samsung Surpasses Intel To Become the World's Largest Chipmaker (bloomberg.com)
Samsung Electronics just knocked Intel off its perch as the world's biggest chipmaker by revenue, a spot the U.S. company has held since 1992. From a report: On Tuesday, Samsung reported 2017 chip sales of $69 billion, blowing past Intel's $63 billion from last year. The switch underlines how Samsung has transformed itself from a maker of cheap televisions into a pervasive supplier of key components in smartphones and other modern computing devices. It's also a testament to the growth of memory chips, Samsung's main market.
Intel, whose processors are the heart of about 90 percent of the world's computers, didn't have a bad year. Sales grew 6 percent. Success in computers is no longer enough, though. Memory chips, a market Intel only recently got back into, are now crucial parts of smartphones, which easily outsell PCs these days. Memory chips are also finding their way into a range of new devices such as cars. One of the ironies of Samsungâ(TM)s success in memory is that itâ(TM)s a business Intel created in the 1960s.
Intel, whose processors are the heart of about 90 percent of the world's computers, didn't have a bad year. Sales grew 6 percent. Success in computers is no longer enough, though. Memory chips, a market Intel only recently got back into, are now crucial parts of smartphones, which easily outsell PCs these days. Memory chips are also finding their way into a range of new devices such as cars. One of the ironies of Samsungâ(TM)s success in memory is that itâ(TM)s a business Intel created in the 1960s.
Good to see Samsung exploding into the market!
And a meltdown for Intel.
Quick Google Search says the largest chip was produced by Pringles and is on display in Idaho. It weighs 5.4 oz (150g)
It never ceases to amaze me how low quality the fact checkers are on this website.
What's a computer?
The U.S. still does a lot of manufacturing and output has been growing steadily. The only thing that's changed is we've gotten really efficient at it and as a result employment in that sector has fallen through the floor. If you're buying cheap goods that you'll probably throw away in a few years when they break, they're probably cheaply manufactured in some other country. That's perfectly fine if you just need a cheap blender or vacuum because you don't intend to use it very much. Why pay for premium quality.
On the other hand if you want something that's built to withstand a lot of heavy duty use and likely comes with a 10-year warranty to boot, you're probably buying something manufactured in the U.S. It's just a simple reflection of labor costs. When the cost of some good or service gets lower and lower, the percentage of cost due to human labor becomes a larger part overall. This means that it doesn't make economic sense to manufacture cheap goods in the U.S. when other countries of China can make the same low quality produce at a much lower cost.
I'm far less worried about foreign manufacturing hurting the U.S. and far more worried about government bans into scientific research. Stem cell medical technology is going to be the future of medicine, and U.S. researchers have been barred from conducting research so it's going to be companies in other countries that are making the big advances that will drive the medical field forward. I can see similar issues if Congress decides to panic and ban research into AI due to similar types of fear-mongering over the possible consequences.
When everyone replaces their bug-ridden Intel chips with new Intel chips that are ridden with as-of-yet unidentified bugs.
Clearly we're moving ever close to the world of Snow Crash:
Ban all Unicode submitters and build a firewall to stop them from taking our character spaces!
Everybody's talking Intel vs ARM, etc., but TFS clearly says Samsung's major market is not processors, but memory chips (which I assume includes various forms of flash). The market for these things is huge, yet they are essentially commodity components. The volume of proprietary IP in a single Intel processor is vast compared to what Samsung produces. Even Samsung's processors use technology licensed from ARM. I don't think Intel is quaking in its boots just yet. The idea that Korean chaebols are huge, supply the world with manufactured goods, and make a lotta money is not new.
Breakfast served all day!