Market research
SEMI comes in for criticism for not encouraging strict use of its own flexible cluster tool standards (SEMI/MESC) from market analysts the Information Network.
"SEMI set some standards for flexibility years ago but it is not being accepted by the largest equipment suppliers and not being encouraged by SEMI," comments Dr Robert N Castellano, president of the Information Network.
Although the flexible market has grown at the expense of the non-flexible, only Novellus, LAM Research and ASM among the large tool suppliers (revenues greater than $50mn) have supplied tools based on the standard.
"Until the largest semiconductor companies such as Applied Materials and Tokyo Electron decide to lead the charge towards an open architecture, the flexible market will be populated by small companies that use their tool compatibility as a leverage to compete against their much larger competitors," explains Castellano. The market for flexible tools was $1.6bn in 2003, according to the research. This was a 5.6% increase on 2002.
SEMI's North America semiconductor equipment book-to-bill ratio for May 2004 was 1.11. Bookings on a three-month average were $1.58bn, 118% higher than May 2003. Billings were $1.42bn, up 77% on May 2003.
VLSI Research reports its May 2004 industry estimates: a world semiconductor equipment book-to-bill ratio of 1.09 (bookings $4.28bn, billings $3.94bn) and front-end capacity utilisation at 99.7%. "The equipment industry cooled off somewhat in May 2004," the market researcher comments. The billings figure represents a 73% increase on May 2003 and the bookings 48% growth.
iSuppli has revised its forecast for 2004 semiconductor revenues to $226.5bn, a 24.4% increase over 2003's $182bn. The market researcher believes that the industry has hit the "sweet spot" economically with no signs of the kind of overheating that led to the extended downturn from 2001. Moving to 2005, growth is expected to slow to 11.8%. In 2006, the market is expected to flatten to a nominal 0.1% increase - a soft landing. The new cycle is forecast to begin in 2007 with 9.2% growth to $276.6bn and 10.4% to $305.4bn in 2008.
"In the future, we'll look back to 2004 and say 'Those were the good old days'," says iSuppli's Gary Grandbois. On the demand side, all major electronic equipment application markets will experience growth simultaneously this year - this is the first time this has happened since 1999.
iSuppli predicts that the image sensor market will reach 733mn units by 2008, compared with 2003's 253mn units. CMOS sensors will increasingly take over from CCDs. Between 2003 and 2008, CMOS devices will experience a compound annual growth rate of more than 40% compared with 12% for CCDs.
