North America: A critical player in the advanced semiconductor market

By Lara Chamness, Industry Research and Statistics, SEMI

As the fabless business model has transformed the semiconductor manufacturing landscape, Taiwan and South Korea have undeniably grown into key semiconductor producing regions. However, it should be noted that North America is home to Intel, Texas Instruments, Micron, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Freescale, Fairchild, Microchip, ON Semiconductor, significant operations of Samsung, and other manufacturers.  As a result, North America accounts for 15 percent (without discretes) of the global total installed fab capacity in 2014 according to the SEMI Fab database.

SEMI graphic 1--2014_Global_Fab_Capacities_0

Due to the presence of leading device manufacturers, North America represents a significant portion of the new equipment market; for the last two years, North America was the second largest market for semiconductor manufacturing equipment. In 2011, North America was the largest market for new equipment. While spending is expected to decline in the region this year, it is anticipated that device manufacturers in North America will still spend about $7 billion on new equipment this year.

SEMI graphic 2--Regional_Equipment_Markets_2010_2014

With such a large installed fab base, North America also claims a significant portion of the wafer fab materials market.  Comparing global fab capacity to global wafer fab market share, North America represents 18 percent of the Wafer Fab Materials market compared to 15 percent of global fab capacity. This is due to the advanced device manufacturing that occurs in the region, which requires more advanced materials which fetch higher average selling prices. The same phenomenon occurs in Taiwan and Europe as well.

SEMI graphic 3--Regional_Wafer_Fab_Materials_Markets

Even though the equipment market is expected to decline in North America this year, the Wafer Fab Materials Market is expected to increase amodest 3 percent. This is due to equipment purchased and installed last year becoming operational. The semiconductor manufacturing market in North America is still very much alive and innovating, whether it be for advanced manufacturing or chip design, companies in North America have proven adept at evolving with the industry.

Plan to attend the SEMI/Gartner Market Symposium at SEMICON West 2015 on Monday, July 13 for an update on the semiconductor market outlook.

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