By Christian G. Dieseldorff, Industry Research & Statistics Group at SEMI
Data from SEMI’s recently updated World Fab Forecast report reveal that 62 new Front End facilities will begin operation between 2017 and 2020. This includes facilities and lines ranging from R&D to high volume fabs, which begin operation before high volume ramp commences. Most of these newly operating facilities will be volume fabs; only 7 are R&Ds or Pilot facilities.
Between 2017 and 2020, China will see 26 facilities and lines beginning operation, about 42 percent of the worldwide total currently tracked by SEMI. The majority of the facilities starting operation in 2018 are Chinese-owned companies. The peak for China in 2018 comes mainly from foundry facilities (54 percent). The Americas region follows with 10 facilities, and Taiwan with 9 facilities. See Figure 1.
Figure 1 depicts the regions in which new facilities will begin operation.
By product type, the forecast for new facilities and lines include: 20 (32 percent) are forecast to be foundries, followed by 13 Memory (21 percent), seven LED (11 percent), six Power (10 percent) and five MEMS (8 percent). See Figure 2
Figure 2: New facilities & lines starting operation by product type from 2017 to 2020
Because the forecast extends several years, it includes facilities and lines of all probabilities, including rumored projects and projects which have been announced, but have a low probability of actually happening. See Table 1.
Probabilities of less than 50 percent are considered unconfirmed, while a probability of 80 to 85 percent means that the facility is currently in construction mode. Projects with 90 percent probability are currently equipping. As the forecast gets farther out, more of the projects have lower probabilities.
The projects under construction, or soon to be under construction, will be key drivers in equipment spending for this industry over the next several years — with China expected to be the key spending market.
SEMI’s World Fab Forecast provides detailed information about each of these fab projects, such as milestone dates, spending, technology node, products, and capacity information. Since the last publication in August 2016, the research team has made 249 changes on 222 facilities/lines.
The World Fab Forecast Report, in Excel format, tracks spending and capacities for over 1,100 facilities including future facilities across industry segments from Analog, Power, Logic, MPU, Memory, and Foundry to MEMS and LEDs facilities. Using a bottoms-up approach methodology, the SEMI Fab Forecast provides high-level summaries and graphs, and in-depth analyses of capital expenditures, capacities, technology and products by fab.
The SEMI Worldwide Semiconductor Equipment Market Subscription (WWSEMS) data tracks only new equipment for fabs and test and assembly and packaging houses. The SEMI World Fab Forecast and its related Fab Database reports track any equipment needed to ramp fabs, upgrade technology nodes, and expand or change wafer size, including new equipment, used equipment, or in-house equipment. Also check out the Opto/LED Fab Forecast.
Learn more about the SEMI fab databases at: www.semi.org/en/MarketInfo/FabDatabase and www.youtube.com/user/SEMImktstats.