News Article
Foundries Boost Fab Equipment Spending In 2012
SEMI's World Fab Forecast database indicates that the total fab spending for equipment needed to ramp fabs, upgrade technology nodes, and expand or change wafer size could increase 16.7 percent in 2013 to reach a new record high of $42.7 billion.
The estimate includes new equipment, used equipment, or in-house equipment but excludes test assembly and packaging equipment.
The latest edition of the forecast lists over 1,150 based facilities and includes 850 silicon based plants, with 76 facilities starting production this year and in the near future. The database tracks projected spending on equipment and construction.
Since the previous publication in May 2012, SEMI analysts have added 296 fabs to more than 230 facilities, into the database. This includes 244 silicon fabs. Semiconductor manufacturing foundries were significant drivers of fab equipment spending in 2012 with over $10 billion combined investment. Their dominance is expected to continue with approximately $10 billion additional equipment spending in 2013. In 2012, the Americas dominated fab construction.
From 2010 to 2012, over $6 billion will be spent on fab construction projects in this region, led by Intel, Globalfoundries, Samsung, and Micron. Most of these construction projects will be completed by the end of 2012. No immediate new fab projects in the Americas are anticipated, resulting in projected investment for 2013 construction to drop below $500 million from almost $3 billion in 2012.
The situation is set to change In 2013, however, with most fab construction expected occur in Taiwan, China, and Korea. Samsung has begun an aggressive conversion of up to four existing Memory lines to System Large Scale Integration (LSI).
A transition from Flash to System LSI is difficult; some drop in capacity in Memory is expected, but the company is expected to compensate by building a new fab for Memory, in Xian, China, with a whopping investment of $7 billion. The fab is expected to begin construction in mid-September 2012. Other increases in fab construction investment will come from SMIC's new fab in Beijing, and TSMC and UMC fab projects in Taiwan.
