Technology
Timeline: The History of the Industrial Internet of Things
The Internet of Things (IoT) isn’t only for connecting the latest gadgets, like a voice-activated speaker or a smart thermostat, to your increasingly connected home.
In fact, the same circumstances that have led to the explosion in smart consumer gadgets, such as universal wireless connectivity, cloud computing, cheap sensors, and better artificial intelligence, are also being used in conjunction with big data to power the next generation of industry, as well.
This new technological layer, called the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), is transforming massive industries like manufacturing, energy, mining, and transportation – and it’ll have a multi-trillion dollar impact on the economy as a whole.
The Birth of the Industrial Internet
Today’s infographic comes to us from Kepware, and it shows how these technological forces have emerged over time to make the IIoT possible.
The road to the creation of the IIoT started in 1968, when engineer Dick Morley made one of the most important breakthroughs in manufacturing history.
That year, Morley and a group of geek friends invented the programmable logic controller (PLC), which would eventually become irreplaceable in automating assembly lines and industrial robots in factories.
Other Major Innovations
Here are some other major innovations that were instrumental in making the IIoT possible:
1983: Ethernet is standardized
1989: Tim Berners-Lee creates Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
1992: TCP/IP allows PLCs to have connectivity
2002: Amazon Web Services launches, and cloud computing starts to take hold
2006: OPC Unified Architecture (UA) enables secure communications between devices, data sources, and applications.
2006: Devices start getting smaller, and batteries and solar energy are becoming powerful and more economical.
2010: Sensors drop in price, enabling them to be put into pretty much everything
And today, the IIoT is a big deal: it’s transforming the backbone of major industries by adding a new layer of technology that helps companies optimize operations, track and analyze equipment, implement predictive maintenance, make sense of massive amounts of data, and make real-time decisions that were never before possible.
And by 2030, the IIoT is estimated by Accenture to have a $14.2 trillion on the global economy – making it one of the most important forces shaping the future business world today.
Technology
Ranked: Largest Semiconductor Foundry Companies by Revenue
Most of the 10 largest semiconductor foundries in the world, are headquartered in just three Asian countries, accounting for 90% of the entire industry’s revenue.

Ranked: Largest Semiconductor Foundry Companies by Revenue
They’re in our phones, cars, planes, and even fridges.
Semiconductor chips have become critical for the modern way of life, and the biggest semiconductor foundry companies rake in billions of dollars from widespread demand.
This chart shows the largest semiconductor foundry companies by their percentage of global revenues in Q1 2023, using data sourced from Trendforce.
Semiconductor Foundry Companies by Revenue
At the top of the list and dwarfing every other company by revenue share is TSMC which earned 60% (or nearly $17 billion) of the entire industry’s revenue in Q1 2023.
Founded in 1987, TSMC is a pure-play foundry that has become Taiwan’s largest company and manufactures products for a host of clients including Apple, NVIDIA, and AMD.
Rank | Company | Country | Revenue (Q1 2023, USD) |
---|---|---|---|
1 | TSMC | 🇹🇼 Taiwan | $16,735M |
2 | Samsung | 🇰🇷 South Korea | $3,446M |
3 | GlobalFoundries | 🇺🇸 US | $1,841M |
4 | UMC | 🇹🇼 Taiwan | $1,784M |
5 | SMIC | 🇨🇳 China | $1,462M |
6 | HuaHong Group | 🇨🇳 China | $845M |
7 | Tower Semiconductor | 🇮🇱 Israel | $356M |
8 | PSMC | 🇹🇼 Taiwan | $332M |
9 | VIS | 🇹🇼 Taiwan | $269M |
10 | DB Hitek | 🇰🇷 South Korea | $234M |
Other | $556M | ||
Global Total | $27,860M |
Note: Revenue based on the following conversion rates: USD 1 = WON 1,276; USD 1 = NTD 30.4.
Well behind TSMC in foundry revenues is integrated device manufacturer Samsung, the biggest company in South Korea, which made $3.4 billion (12.4% of the industry’s revenue) from its semiconductor manufacturing business.
GlobalFoundries from the U.S., UMC from Taiwan and SMIC from China round out the top five, with each taking home around 6% of industry’s revenue share in Q1 2023. The former spun out from AMD’s manufacturing arm when the company went fabless in 2009.
Industry concentration is apparent in semiconductors. For example, the top 10 semiconductor foundry companies account for 98% of the entire industry’s revenue. Furthermore, 90% of the market is dominated by companies in just three Asian countries: Taiwan, South Korea, and China.
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