Market research firm IC Insights reports that Samsung Electronics has ranked third for investment in semiconductor research and development, retaining its position from last year, with Intel taking the top spot followed by Qualcomm in second. Samsung is said to have invested $2.965 billion towards semiconductor research to cement its place as one of the top ten companies that spends significant resources towards this purpose. Intel and Qualcomm invested $11.537 and $5.501 billion respectively.
IC Insights claims the reason why Samsung didn't increase R&D spend because it is a participant in the IBM joint platform as an R&D partner, alongside Global Foundries, so it simply did enough to retain its position from last year. That's not to say the company doesn't have the option to ramp up investment in this arena in the future.