IC Insights: Worldwide semiconductor R&D spending will continue to grow by 9% in 2022, breaking new records

According to IC Insights’ upcoming 2022 McLean Report Q2 Update, global R&D spending by semiconductor companies is expected to increase in 2022Up 9% to US$80.5 billion (approximately RMB 538.545 billion)which will grow to US$108.6 billion (about 726.534 billion yuan) at a CAGR of 5.5% between 2022 and 2026.

The report shows that R&D spending by global semiconductor companies will increase by more than 13% in 2021 to a record $71.4 billion,IntelIt continued to top the list with an all-time high R&D spending of $15.2 billion (up 12%), or about 19% of the industry. For comparison, Intel’s R&D spending grew by only 1% in 2020, while it fell by 1% in 2019.

Samsung ranks second, its spending rose 13% to an estimated $6.5 billion after rising 23% in 2020. The South Korean memory giant has accelerated R&D spending on cutting-edge logic processes (5nm and below) to strengthen its competition with TSMC. The latter boosted R&D spending by 20% in 2021 to about $4.5 billion after raising it by 26% in 2020.

In 2021, 21 semiconductor suppliers will spend more than $1 billion in R&D, compared with 19 in 2020. The top 10 companies collectively increased their R&D spending by 18% to $52.6 billion, or about 65% of the industry’s total R&D. Upcoming data for the second quarter shows that the top 10 companies will have an R&D/sales ratio of 13.5% in 2021, compared to 14.5% in 2020.