October 14, 2009 – After a two-year slump, silicon wafer shipments to semiconductor makers are poised to new record levels within the next two years, according to new forecast data from SEMI.

Wafer sales are expected to have hit "a low point" in 2009, with a -20% skid culminating consecutive years of attrition (following a -6% slide in 2008). But SEMI prognosticates wafer sales will jump 23% in 2010, and another 10% in 2011, to levels exceeding that of 2007 before the global financial crisis and industry downturn.

Total electronic grade silicon slices, millions of sq. in. Does not include non-polished slices. (Source: SEMI)

Note that SEMI’s totals for annual shipments don’t exactly line up with the sum of its quarterly statistics — e.g., 2008 actual listed here is 7882 MSI, vs. adding up 1Q07 through 4Q07 gives 8137 MSI. We suspect this is due to the new forecast’s exclusion of nonpolished wafers; the difference between 2008 actuals and quarterly sums divided by four gives ~63/quarter, which is roughly what nonpolished stats were in 2006, the last time SEMI published them separately.

Update: Dan Tracy, SEMI’s senior director of industry research and statistics, filled in the nonpolished gap for 2009, saying it’s averaged 30-40 MSI per quarter in 2009 (closer to 30 MSI in 1Q-2Q).

So, let’s finish the math — in 1H09 (3Q wafer stats won’t be released for a few weeks), wafer shipments were 2626 MSI; taking out 60 for nonpolished leaves 2566 MSI. SEMI’s forecast for 2009 (without nonpolished) is 6331 MSI. Which means the industry needs to ramp up in 2H09 to 3765 MSI, or 47% growth from the first half of the year.

Total electronic grade silicon slices, millions of sq. in. Does not include non-polished slices. (Source: SEMI)