GlobalData has used its exclusive theme-based analysis to identify the semiconductor companies best placed to succeed in the future based on their strength in high-performance computing.

According to GlobalData’s latest Semiconductor Sector Scorecard, high-performance computing has been identified as one of the top ten themes that will impact the sector over the next two years.

The other nine are data centres, artificial intelligence (AI), ambient commerce, self-driving cars, industrial Internet, gaming, 5G, M&A and geopolitics.

Viewing the world’s data by ‘themes’ makes it easier to make important decisions.

GlobalData’s thematic research team has developed a “thematic engine” which is designed to identify tomorrow’s tech leaders rather than today’s tech incumbents, based on their competitive position in the most important themes impacting their industry. The GlobalData thematic engine spans 15 key technology sectors – from semiconductors to consumer electronics to enterprise software – and covers over 60 themes.

The semiconductor companies given the highest thematic weighting by GlobalData for high-performance computing are: Intel, Google, Amazon, and AMD.

What does high-performance computing mean for the semiconductor sector? 

High-performance computing evolved in the 1960s from early scientific computing objectives for centralized highly scalable processing in support of singular, compute-intensive workloads.

Solutions combined traditional desktop computer CPUs along with specialized storage and connectivity resources into a large computing cluster or grid capable of jointly solving problems beyond the reach of standalone computing architectures.

Traditionally, HPC implementations have been extremely costly to build, use and maintain, owing not just to unique hardware infrastructure but also to excessive power and cooling requirements. For this reason, many of the world’s largest implementations have evolved as state-funded projects supporting co-operative scientific use.

Fortunately, the economies of scale available with the web and the burgeoning development of purpose-built, high-performance chips (CPU, GPU, FPGA) are beginning to drive HPC-scale opportunities downmarket with hyperscale public cloud providers such as Amazon and Google beginning to offer approximate capabilities on a per usage basis.

The full universe of 57 semiconductor companies covered by GlobalData’s Semiconductor Sector Scorecard are:

  1. Aixtron
  2. Alibaba
  3. Alphabet
  4. Amazon
  5. AMD
  6. AMS
  7. Analog Devices
  8. Apple
  9. ASML Holding
  10. Baidu
  11. Barefoot Networks
  12. Broadcom
  13. Cambricon
  14. Cirrus Logic
  15. Cypress
  16. Dialog
  17. Diodes
  18. Graphcore
  19. Himax
  20. IBM
  21. Infineon
  22. Intel
  23. Marvell
  24. Maxim
  25. MediaTek
  26. Melexis
  27. Mellanox
  28. Microchip
  29. Micron
  30. Microsoft
  31. Monolithic Power Systems
  32. Nanya Tech
  33. Nvidia
  34. NXP
  35. On Semiconductor
  36. Qorvo
  37. Qualcomm
  38. Realtek Semiconductor
  39. Renesas
  40. Rohm
  41. Samsung Electronics
  42. Silicon Labs
  43. Silicon Motion
  44. SK Hynix
  45. Skyworks
  46. SMIC
  47. Softbank
  48. STMicroelectronics
  49. Teradyne
  50. Tesla
  51. Texas Instruments
  52. Tokyo Electron
  53. TSMC
  54. UMC
  55. Vanguard
  56. Xilinx
  57. Zeno

 GlobalData’s full thematic methodology is available here.