Business and Markets

Back in 2012, China ranked fifth among seven regions worldwide in IC wafer capacity but surged past the Americas and Japan in 2018 and 2019 to claim the number three position (figure 1). That’s a big deal given that ICs account for the largest share of wafer capacity excluding discrete, opto, MEMS...

Sales of critical subsystems for use in semiconductor manufacturing equipment will exceed $12.2 billion in 2020, a 6% increase over the previous record of $11.5 billion reached in 2018. What makes this such a remarkable feat is they achieved this despite unprecedented disruptions to the supply...

The global economy has started down a gradual path to recovery from COVID-19 in recent months as the world continues to combat the virus. Yet one sector – semiconductors – has shown impressive growth powered by a transformation hastened by the pandemic across industries ranging from education and...

Global business conditions continued to improve through October although the rate of improvement slowed a bit as pandemic concerns increased (Chart 1).Electronic Equipment Shipments RecoveringThird-quarter world electronic equipment shipment growth showed a big improvement over the second quarter...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) just raised its regional GDP growth forecasts. For the world it predicts a 4.4% global GDP decline this year followed by a 5.2% expansion next year. This economic turnaround hinges on being guided by good science, political leadership and popular acceptance.

The historic and forecast growth trends for cleanroom robots are in line with the long-term growth rates of semiconductor manufacturing equipment.

Although the semiconductor chip and capital equipment markets performed well in the first half of 2020, many of the electronic equipment end markets struggled globally. World electronic equipment sales declined almost 10% in 2Q’20 vs. 2Q’19.

So far the semiconductor industry is outperforming most other manufacturing sectors. Semiconductor capital equipment shipments were up 23% globally in 2Q’20 vs. 2Q’19 and semiconductor chip 3/12 growth is still in positive territory. However there are signs of slowing.

COVID-19 has forced all the players in the semiconductor manufacturing supply chain to reassess how much inventory they need to hold.

2020 still looks to be a very difficult year. How we manage the pandemic, the global economy and international relations remain major challenges but there are glimmers of light near-term and a likely much brighter future in 2021 and 2022.