SEMI, the global industry association representing the electronics manufacturing supply chain, today announced that the worldwide semiconductor photomask market was $3.32 billion in 2016 and is forecasted to reach $3.57 billion in 2018. After increasing 1 percent in 2015, the photomask market increased 2 percent in 2016. The mask market is expected to grow 4 and 3 percent in 2017 and 2018, respectively, according to the SEMI report. Key drivers in this market continue to be advanced technology feature sizes (less than 45nm) and increased manufacturing in Asia-Pacific. Taiwan remains the largest photomask regional market for the sixth year in a row and is expected to be the largest market for the duration of the forecast.

Revenues of $3.32 billion place photomasks at 13 percent of the total wafer fabrication materials market, behind silicon and semiconductor gases. By comparison, SEMI reports that photomasks represented 18 percent of the total wafer fabrication materials market in 2003. Another trend highlighted in the report is the increasing importance of captive mask shops. Captive mask shops, aided by intense capital expenditures in 2011 and 2012 continue to gain market share at merchant suppliers’ expense. Captive mask suppliers accounted for 63 percent of the total photomask market last year, up from 56 percent in 2015. Captive mask shops represented 31 percent of the photomask market in 2003.

A recent published SEMI report, 2016 Photomask Characterization Summary, provides details on the 2016 Photomask Market for seven regions of world including North America, Japan, Europe, Taiwan, Korea, China, and Rest of World. The report also includes data for each of these regions from 2003 to 2018 and summarizes lithography developments over the past year.