The IC Insights report said that MediaTek is predicted to grow revenue by 27 percent and Nvidia by 35 percent year-on-year. This is a jump of two places in the ranking compared with 2015. Globalfoundries fell three places to 18 based on the prediction that its sales will drop by 11 percent annually.

Nvidia is reporting strong demand for its GPUs and Tegra processors with its year-over-year sales in its latest quarter up 63 percent for gaming, up 193 percent for data centre, and up 61 percent for automotive applications.

MediaTek did well in the smartphone market, which only increased four percent in 2016, its involvement in fast-growing China-based smartphone suppliers such as Oppo and Vivo is forecast to help drive its 2016 increase.

Of course, Intel is still the king of chips and increased its lead over second-placed Samsung. This is mainly because of Intel's series of acquisitions. Samsung suffered because it is a major memory supplier and was hit by declining average selling prices in that sector as are Micron and SK Hynix.

If the three pure-play foundries were excluded from the top-20 ranking, AMD ($4,238 million), HiSilicon ($3,762 million), and IDM Sharp ($3,706 million), would have been ranked in the 18th, 19th, and 20th positions, respectively.

In August 2016, China-based contract assembler Foxconn bought a 66 percent controlling interest in Sharp for $3.8 billion and got its foot into the door of the market.