Two-year chipmaking equipment spending boom coming
The SEMI trade body is forecasting the global market will grow by 20.8 percent in 2014 to reach $38.4 billion and to expand another 10.8 percent in 2015 to exceed $42.6 billion.
One of the reasons for the underspending has been that over the last decade the industry move towards fabless and fab-lite business models has been accelerating leaving only a few foundries and large IDMs prepared to spend on equipment. However, with a more healthy general economy and optimism around wearable electronics and the Internet of Things there is an eagerness to invest in production capacity for sub 20nm logic, for 3D NAND flash memory, in DRAM technology upgrades for mobile applications, and expansion of advanced packaging capacity for flip chip, wafer bumping, and wafer-level packaging.
2014 mid-year equipment forecast by market region. Source: SEMI.
As a results all the regions of the world that SEMI tracks separately are forecast to see equipment spending increases in 2015. Front-end wafer processing equipment is forecast to grow 11.9 percent in 2015 to $34.8 billion, up from $31.1 billion in 2014. Test equipment and assembly and packaging equipment is forecast to experience growth next year, rising to $3.1 billion (+1.6 percent) and $2.6 billion (+1.2 percent), respectively. The forecast indicates that next year is on track to be the second largest spending year ever, surpassed only by $47.7 billion spent in 2000.
Growth is forecast in all regions except ROW in 2014 and all regions in 2015. Taiwan is forecast to continue to be the world’s largest spender with $11.6 billion estimated for 2014 and $12.3 billion for 2015. In 2014, North America is second at $7.2 billion, followed by South Korea at $6.9 billion. For 2015, South Korea is in second ($8.0 billion) in spending, followed by North America ($7.3 billion).
In 2014, year-over-year increases are expected to be largest for China (47.3 percent), North America (35.7 percent), South Korea (33.0 percent), and Europe (29.7 percent). Year-over-year percentage increases for 2015 are largest for Europe (47.8 percent increase), ROW (23.5 percent), Japan (15.6 percent), and South Korea (15.0 percent).
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