TAIWAN — September 21, 2000 — An upbeat SEMI Taiwan conference opened with dancing dragons and a welcome address by President Chen Shui Bian, who boldly predicted that, by 2002, his country would become the world’s leading investor in chip processing equipment.
The show floor in Taipei was full of 300mm equipment and bridge tool demos as vendors wooed attendees from TSMC, UMC, Winbond, and other chipmakers with plans to join the shift to 300mm wafers. Dr. David N. K. Wang, senior vice president of Applied Materials, suggested that in 2001, Taiwan might be the leading market for 300mm tools. He also indicated that Taiwan’s foundries not only have caught up to the technology of the top integrated device manufacturers (IDMs), but might actually be moving out in front.
“TSMC and UMC are going to 0.13 micron while Samsung and Intel are going to 0.15 micron,” he explained at a SEMI industry briefing. The technology push was evident in the equipment buying statistics cited by Stan Myers, SEMI’s president/CEO, at the opening ceremony. Taiwan’s equipment buying in the first half of 2000 surged 187% over 1H99, the largest increase for any part of the world (see table). President Chen pointed out that Taiwan’s buying of US$4.8 billion in the first half of this year made it second in the world only to the Americas, with US$5.5B in the 6-month period.
The show in Taipei’s World Trade Center featured some 1200 booths with 850 exhibitors, with hopes of attracting close to 15,000 attendees. With fab spending for 300mm process equipment expected to reach US$12.8B by 2002, Taiwan is expected to account for 26% of total worldwide buying that year, according to Applied’s Dr. Wang, which would probably make it the world leader. An executive at a testing company on the floor said that top foundries were sometimes buying multi-million testers just to offer new capabilities and get new business even if they were not needed for their existing products.
President Chen emphasized that, even beyond semiconductor manufacturing, Taiwan was developing many applications for downstream industry, as well as pushing ancillary industries, such as electronics testing and packaging, and flat-panel displays. He cited the growth of system-on-a-chip capabilities in Taiwan, and said that these technologies would be utilized for advanced products of the 21st Century, such as IC-based home and internet appliances, as well as less costly personal computers. He said that Taiwan has now become the world’s third largest computer manufacturer.
The semiconductor build-up will last over three years in this cycle, according to Wang, who cited strong and growing global economies, a rapid increase in internet usage, and higher semiconductor content in advanced electronic devices and equipment. SEMI predicts that semiconductor capital spending will be up 68.8% this year and 28% more next year.
— Bob Haavind