Global semiconductor wafer fab capacity is expected to increase by 6% in 2024
Views：98Published：2024/6/26
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International Electronics Business News 21st SEMI predicts in its latest "World Fab Forecast" report that the global semiconductor manufacturing capacity is expected to increase by 6% in 2024 and 7% in 2025
The c quarterly report shows that in order to keep up with the continued growth in chip demand, the global semiconductor manufacturing capacity is expected to increase by 6% in 2024 and 7% in 2025, reaching a historical high of 33.7 million wafers per month (wpm: 8-inch equivalent, the same below).
In 2024, cutting-edge capacity at 5nm and below nodes is expected to grow by 13%, mainly driven by generative artificial intelligence (AI) for data center training, reasoning and cutting-edge devices. In order to improve processing energy efficiency, chip manufacturers including Intel, Samsung and TSMC are preparing to start producing 2nm all-gate (GAA) chips, which will increase total cutting-edge capacity by 17% in 2025.
“From the cloud to edge devices, the proliferation of AI processing is fueling the race to develop high-performance chips and driving a strong expansion of semiconductor manufacturing capacity around the world,” said Ajit Manocha, president and CEO of SEMI. “This creates a virtuous cycle: AI will drive growth in semiconductor content across a variety of applications, which in turn will encourage further investment.” "
Capacity expansion by country/region
The capacity of chipmakers in mainland China is expected to maintain double-digit growth, increasing 14% to 10.1 million units in 2025 after a 15% increase to 8.85 million units in 2024, close to one-third of the industry's total capacity. Despite the potential risk of over-growth, the region continues to invest aggressively in expanding capacity, in part to mitigate the impact of recent export controls. Major foundry suppliers including Huahong Group, Powerchip, Xi'an Integrated Circuit, SMIC and DRAM maker CXMT are investing heavily to increase semiconductor manufacturing capabilities in the region.
Capacity growth in most other major chip manufacturing regions is expected to be no more than 5% by 2025. Taiwan is expected to reach 5.8 million wpm in 2025, a growth rate of 4%, ranking second; while South Korea is expected to rank third next year, with capacity expanding 7% to 5.4 million wpm after breaking the 5 million wpm mark for the first time in 2024. Japan, the Americas Semiconductor production capacity in China, Europe and the Middle East, and Southeast Asia is expected to increase by 4.7 million wpm (3% year-on-year), 3.2 million wpm (5% year-on-year), 2.7 million wpm (4% year-on-year), and 1.8 million wpm (4% year-on-year), respectively.
Foundry and HBM usher in a wave of capacity expansion
Driven mainly by Intel's establishment of foundry business and China's capacity expansion, the capacity in the foundry field is expected to increase by 11% and 10% in 2024 and 2025, respectively, reaching 12.7 million wpm in 2026.
To meet the growing demand for faster processors in artificial intelligence servers, high-bandwidth memory (HBM) has been rapidly adopted, which has driven unprecedented capacity growth in the memory field. The explosive growth of artificial intelligence applications has driven the growth of demand for denser HBM stacks. In response, leading DRAM manufacturers are increasing their investment in HBM/DRAM. DRAM capacity is expected to grow by 9% in both 2024 and 2025.
In contrast, 3D The NAND market recovery remains slow, with no capacity growth expected in 2024 and a 5% growth forecast for 2025.
The rise of AI applications in edge devices is expected to increase the DRAM capacity of mainstream smartphones from 8GB to 12GB, while laptops using AI assistants will require at least 16GB of DRAM. The expansion of AI to edge devices will also stimulate demand for DRAM.
Reposted from: International Electronic Commerce, automatically translated by Google
