News Article
Information Network predicts CMP slurry growth
CMP slurry set to grow 15% in 2011 as IC demand continues
With a slowdown in IC sales not expected until Q3 2012, demand for slurries to planarize IC surfaces will grow 15% in 2011 on top of a 36% growth in 2010, according to the report CMP Technology: Competition, Products, Markets, recently published by The Information Network, a New Tripoli, PA-based market research company.
The long awaited transition to copper interconnects for memory devices skyrocketed in 2009 and 2010, and will continue to be a driver for slurry sales. Equipment for manufacturing ICs with copper circuitry grew 152% in 2010 compared to 105% for the rest of the semiconductor equipment space.
In 2010, growth in logic was more pronounced than memory. The key here is that in a logic device there are 10-12 layers of copper interconnects versus only 1 layer for memory. So 2010 was an exceptional year for copper because it combined the robust growth of logic as well as the continued transition to copper for memory.
“While the overall chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) slurry market grew 36% in 2010 to $1.2 billion, the copper slurry market grew 43%,” noted Dr. Robert N. Castellano, president of The Information Network. “Cabot Microelectronics led the overall slurry market in 2010 although its market share dropped 1.3% from 2009. DA Nano led the copper slurry market in 2010 as its market share grew 0.7%.”
Shown in the table below are percentage changes to market share by the top seven slurry manufacturers for the overall slurry market and the copper slurry market.
