The addition of 10 new 300 mm wafer fabs that are scheduled to open this year will push wafer capacity to a growth of 8.7%, according to new data from IC Insights.
The largest capacity increase will come from large new memory fabs from SK Hynix and Winbond as well as three new fabs — two in Taiwan and one in China — from the leading foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC).
Other 300 mm fabs opening this year include:
- CR Micro’s power semiconductor fab
- Silan’s power discretes and sensor fab
- Texas Instruments’ RFAB2 fab for analog devices
- ST Microelectronics and Tower Semiconductor’s mixed-signal, RF and foundry
- Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp.’s new fab in China for foundry services
Despite the ongoing supply chain issues due to the chip shortage and economic difficulties, semiconductor demand is still high. IC Insights forecasts the market will increase 9.2% in 2022.
Even with these 10 fabs entering service, chip demand is expected to help keep the worldwide capacity utilization rate at an elevated level of 93.0% this year, only a slight decline compared to 2021 when it was 93.8%.
Volatile market
Wafer capacity is generally a volatile business with large swings in growth rates. In 2019, IC Insights reported wafer capacity declined -4.7% but then grew to 19.0% in 2021.
The installed wafer capacity fluctuates according to market conditions with growth rates over the past five year ranging from 4.0% in 2016 to 8.5% in 2021. There was a net loss of wafer capacity in the IC industry in 2002, the first year in history this happened. However, seven years later in 2009, the IC industry registered even a greater net loss of wafer capacity caused by spending cutbacks and an IC market downturn.
In 2021, wafer capacity grew 8.5%, which was an all-time high in wafer starts, until this year when it will jump 8.7%.
The full research can be found in The 2022 McClean Report.
