With chip shortages and governments lining up incentives to bolster semiconductor manufacturing drawing headlines worldwide, the SEMI Market Intelligence Team (MIT) recently shared insights on the record-breaking wafer fab investments tracked in the latest SEMI World Fab Forecast report during a podcast with 3D InCites.
Sanjay Malhotra, Vice President of Corporate Marketing and MIT, and Christian Dieseldorff, Senior Principal Analyst, highlighted key data from the report, how the data is gathered, and how semiconductor manufacturing suppliers use the information to help guide their business decisions.
Malhotra recaps the Market Symposium at SEMICON West and the Mid-Year Total Semiconductor Equipment Forecast presented at the event and reveals how he used the World Fab Forecast in his prior work in the industry. Malhotra and Dieseldorff talk about the outlook for new fabs and fab expansions, and how much the increases are expected to contribute to production capacity gains.
Dieseldorff also discusses the impact of the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act and other government incentives around the world on semiconductor manufacturing growth. He and Malhotra provide guidance for World Fab Forecast users to consider when reviewing the report to help listeners make the most of the data.
The podcast is the second in a series providing semiconductor manufacturing updates across the wafer fab; equipment; materials; and assembly, packaging and test markets to help semiconductor companies and other key industry stakeholders with their day-to-day business decisions. The debut podcast focused on the semiconductor manufacturing equipment market.
This episode adds context to the September 27 announcement of the latest quarterly World Fab Forecast report, which highlights that global fab equipment spending for front-end facilities is expected to increase approximately 9% year-over-year (YOY) to a new all-time high of US$99 billion in 2022. The report also shows the global fab equipment industry increasing capacity this year and again in 2023.
Look for the SEMI MIT Semiconductor Front-end Fab Investment and Capacity Outlook at the SEMI Market Forum at SEMICON Japan 2022 at Tokyo Big Sight on December 15th.
For more information about semiconductor equipment market trends and related reports, please see SEMI Market Reports. To subscribe, contact mktstats@semi.org.
Samer Bahou is the Director of Marketing Communications at SEMI.