Feb. 14, 2008 – Spending on combined fab construction and tooling will slump 15% in 2008, following 9% growth in 2007, according to new data from SEMI, a downward revision from Oct. 2007 estimates. That includes ~-10% for foundries, 15% for memory fabs — and a whopping 30% for the logic/MPU segment.
Spending on fab construction projects is seen declining 9% in 2008. Twelve new volume fabs are expected to start construction, representing total potential capacity of 1.53M WPM (200mm equivalent). The Toshiba/Sandisk flash JV, Samsung, Hynix, Rexchip (Elpida/Powerchip), and Powerchip are the year’s top five fab construction spenders, according to SEMI’s Fab Database. (Worth noting that all of them are memory players.)
Overall fab capacity will grow ~11% in 2008, once again heavily driven by the memory segment, which will account for 41% of that (vs. 38% in 2007). Memory fabs will increase their capacity by 18% Y-Y — second is the foundry sector with just an 8% increase, followed by logic/MPU with projected 5% growth in capacity.
Days ago, Gartner similarly predicts a 15% decline in capex this year, after a recent downward adjustment to its forecasts.