The semiconductor industry is sluggish, and global wafer equipment spending will decline this year and next

国际研究暨The latest forecast released by Gartner, a consulting firm, pointed out that global wafer equipment (WFE) spending totaled $31.4 billion in 2012, down 13.3% from $36.2 billion in 2011.

 

Although the wafer equipment market is expected to improve in 2013, Gartner does not expect to return to positive growth, estimating spending of $31.2 billion for that year, a slight decrease of 0.8% from 2012. The global wafer equipment market is not expected to return to a positive growth trajectory until 2014, and the estimated expenditure is expected to increase by 15.3% to US$35.9 billion from 2013.

 

Bob Johnson, vice president of research at Gartner, said: "The semiconductor equipment market outlook is declining due to weak overall economic conditions. The global wafer equipment market started the year strongly due to the increase in sub-30nm production by wafer and other logic chip manufacturers; However, the demand for new logic production equipment slows down as yields increase, resulting in lower shipments over the next period. ”

 

The capacity utilization rate of wafer fabs will decline to 80%~83% by the end of 2012, and is expected to gradually increase to about 87% by the end of 2013. The capacity utilization rate of advanced processes will rise to 87% to 89% in the second half of this year, and will further increase to 90%~93% in 2013, which is expected to provide manufacturers with a more optimistic capital investment environment.

 

"Although the inventory adjustment period that led to lower production appears to be coming to an end, overall market weakness continues to dampen capacity utilization. Increased demand, combined with low yields before advanced process development reaches maturity, has led to a shortage of advanced logic ICs, but it is not enough to drive overall capacity utilization back to desired levels. In the memory market sector, some suppliers have even reduced production to support weak market fundamentals. ”

 

Gartner believes that the memory market will continue to perform weakly throughout 2012, with the NAND market flat due to a sharp decline in DRAM investment. Looking ahead to the market beyond 2012, analysts foresee a moderate growth pattern, normal but fairly benign cyclical fluctuations, moderately single-digit growth in industrial recovery unit revenues, and a corresponding increase in capital investment.

 

Foundry cost has been revised down in 2012 and 2013 due to the earlier success of some foundries in improving yields for 28nm processes and the risk of higher wafer demand declines in the fourth quarter of 2012 and Q1 2013. However, no来几年的晶圆代工资本支出(capex)则获上修，因为业者更积极投入深紫外光(EUV)微影技术和18英寸晶圆的研发。

 

Now that foundries have reduced fab capacity utilization by more than 10% in late 2012, Gartner believes they are likely to tighten their capital expenditures in the short term. Wafer demand will decline for several seasons due to a downward revision in the semiconductor device boom, coupled with the fact that some major foundries have successfully improved the yield of their 28nm low-power Poly SiON process despite the low yield of the 28nm High-k+ metal gate (HKMG) process.