SEMI: Global wafer fab equipment spending is expected to reach US$99 billion in 2022, an increase of about 9% year-on-year

SEMI released its latest quarterly World Fab Forecast Report, predicting that global front-end fab equipment spending this year will increase by about 9% year-on-year to a record high of $99 billion. In addition, SEMI President and CEO Ajit Manocha said: "After reaching record levels in 2022, the equipment market is expected to maintain healthy growth next year driven by new fabs and upgrade demand."

(Source: SEMI.org)

SEMI predicts that Taiwan will lead the way in wafer fab equipment spending this year, increasing 47% year-on-year to $30 billion, while mainland China will only spend $22 billion, down 11.7% from last year's peak.

South Korea is next, with a 5.5% decline to $22.2 billion, but spending in Europe/Middle East is expected to reach a record $6.6 billion - although the absolute amount of spending is still lower than other regions, the year-on-year growth is as high as 141%.

SEMI Spending, Strong demand for advanced technologies such as high-performance computing (HPC) is driving a surge in spending in the Europe/Middle East region, with the Americas and Southeast Asia also expected to see record high investments through 2023.

SEMI predicts that wafer production capacity will continue to grow by 5.3% in 2023 (Photo: SEMI Fab Forcast)

The SEMI World Fab Forecast report shows that following a 7.4% increase in 2021, global capacity growth will strive to move towards 8% in 2022 (reaching 7.7%).

The last time such a year-on-year growth rate was seen was in 2010, when the monthly production capacity of 200mm wafer equivalents exceeded 16 million pieces, about half of the estimated 29 million pieces in 2023.

Capacity additions at 167 fabs and production lines will account for more than 84% of equipment spending through 2022, though that figure is expected to fall back to 79% next year as 129 known fabs and production lines add capacity.

Unsurprisingly, foundry still accounts for the bulk of equipment spending in 2022/2023 (53%), followed by storage (32% and 33% in 2022/2023 respectively) - they are also the top two sectors in terms of capacity growth in the industry.

Finally, SEMI’s September update of its global wafer fab forecast report lists 1,453 facilities/production lines, including 148 mass production facilities/production lines that will begin production in 2022 or soon thereafter.

From cnBeta.COM