According to numbers published by iSuppli at the end of last year, the combined Renesas and NEC chip operations would represent sales of $10.06bn. This would give it greater sales revenues than Texas Instruments, STMicroelectronics and Qualcomm.
This would mean the new company will be competing head-to-head with fellow Japanese supplier Toshiba in the number three slot, which had sales of $10.6bn in 2009.
It is worth noting that unlike Toshiba, Renesas does not have a memory business.
In fact, Renesas Electronics is the largest semiconductor supplier which does not have a memory business. The top two chip firms, Intel and Samsung, are also memory suppliers.
It is the memory business which helped to lift Toshiba’s 2009 numbers.
For example, in 3Q09, the DRAM and NAND flash markets surged and helped Toshiba post a 3Q09/2Q09 sales increase of 30%, according to figures from IC Insights.
