14 DAY TRIAL // After the problems with semiconductor sales in 2008-2010, things started to get better, and while RAM took some time to stabilize, integrated circuits (ICs) were a bit quicker in rebounding.
Foundry customers went through a period of general restocking last year, and then there was the increased demand for smartphones.
Because of that, foundries found themselves needing to meet higher and higher orders of integrated circuits.
That is why, Gartner believes, the market went up by 16.2% compared to 2011, to $34.6 billion / 25.5 billion EUR.
40nm and 28nm chip manufacturers earned particularly large sums of money.
"2012 was the first year that the semiconductor revenue for mobile devices surpassed that of PCs and notebooks," said Samuel Wang, research VP at Gartner.
"It also marked the first year that advanced technology for mobile applications drove the foundry revenue. Furthermore, 2012 saw not only major foundries improve the yield of 28nm technology, but also many foundries fine-tuned the device performance of legacy nodes."