Fabless semiconductor company
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A fabless semiconductor company specializes in the design and sale of hardware devices implemented on semiconductor chips. It achieves an advantage by outsourcing the fabrication of the devices to a specialized semiconductor manufacturer called a semiconductor foundry or fab.
A fabless company may concentrate its research and development resources on the end market without being required to invest resources in staying current in semiconductor technology. For this reason they are also known as IP firms, because their primary product consists of licenses in patents, trade secrets, mask works, and other forms of intellectual property.
Currently, the top five fabless companies are NVIDIA Corporation, Qualcomm, Broadcom, ATI Technologies and SanDisk.