SEMI, the global industry association representing electronics manufacturing and the supply chain, forecasts a rapid increase in global fab equipment spending next year with 24% growth to about $67.7 billion.
This is 10% higher than what was previously anticipated with all product segments seeing solid growth rates. Memory fabs will lead worldwide semiconductor segments with $30 billion in equipment spending, with leading-edge logic and foundry expected to rank second with $29 billion in investments, SEMI said.
The 3D NAND memory sub-segment specifically will see spending growth of 30% in investments this year before spending growth of 17% in 2021. Dynamic random access memory (DRAM) fab investments will grow 50% in spending next year after falling 11% in 2020. Fab spending on logic and foundry will rise 16% in spending after dropping about 11% in spending this year.
Image sensor equipment investments will rise 60% over 2020 and add a 35% rise in investment in 2021. Analog and mixed signal investments will grow by 40% in 2020 and an additional 13% in 2021. Power-related devices are expected to grow 16% in 2020 and jump an additional 67% in 2021.
Declining year
SEMI predicts that investments in global fab equipment will increase in the second half of 2020, the overall year will mark the second consecutive yearly drop in fab equipment spending — 4% this year after an 8% drop in 2019.
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted global fab equipment spending with a quarter-on-quarter decline of 15% in the first quarter of 2020. SEMI said that it appeared some companies built up stock as a countermeasure to the virus in March as it spread, and shelter-in-place and social distancing became the norm. IT and electronic products demand rose during this time for items such as notebooks, game consoles and healthcare.
