Is Foundry only a capacity provider still?: Relations of role playing for semiconductor industry value chain by patent analysis

Foundry, Design House, and IDM are 3 major roles in the semiconductor industry value chain. This study used patent analysis to explore the technology level for the different role playing of the semiconductor industry value chain for past nearly 30 years. The research team applied many crucial techniques on patent analysis, along with patent citation network analysis, to find out the evolution for different roles in different technology eras. IDM got the leading position whether on patent number or patent cited times, but Foundry made impressive progress on the growth rate from the 6-inch wafer size era to the 12-inch wafer size era. That is, Foundry served not only as manufacturing capacity providers traditionally but also as technology donators gradually. From the patent citation network, it could be found that the relationship between Foundry and IDM is stronger than that of Foundry and Design House.