July 12, 2005 — Following the robust 67.2% market expansion in 2004, the equipment market will decline 12.1% to $32.6 billion in 2005, according to the mid-year edition of the SEMI Capital Equipment Consensus Forecast, released at the annual SEMICON West exposition.

Survey respondents, who were interviewed in May and June and represent companies with a majority of the total sales volume for the global semiconductor equipment industry, see the market growing at a single-digit rate in 2006 and resuming double-digit growth over the following two years to reach $44.3B in 2008.

“A large amount of new manufacturing capacity is coming on-line following a year of very strong capital investment,” said SEMI president and CEO Stanley Myers. “SEMI members have anticipated that customer spending in 2005 would be more cautious as the new capacity is absorbed. The outlook is for cyclic growth to resume at moderate but stable levels in the following years.”

This forecast also indicates that the final manufacturing equipment segments will experience the sharpest declines this year. Survey respondents anticipate that the market for assembly and packaging equipment will contract 26% to $1.81B in 2005. The market for equipment to test semiconductors is expected to decline about 24% to $4.85B this year. Wafer processing equipment, the largest product segment by dollar value, is expected to decline 9% in 2005 to $23.05 B.

South Korea stands out as the only expanding regional equipment market in 2005, with growth exceeding 21%. Sales of new equipment in China and the Rest-of-World market regions will decline 40% and 35%,respectively.