Semiconductor trade organization SEMI forecasts that global sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment spending will reach a new industry record of $125.5 billion in 2025, a 7.4% increase year-on-year.
The better news is that chip equipment growth will continue into 2026, when it will hit a new high of $138.1 billion. This growth will be driven by edge logic, memory and technology transitions.
"Following strong growth in 2024, global semiconductor manufacturing equipment sales are forecast to expand again this year and set a new record in 2026," said Ajit Manocha, SEMI president and CEO. "While the semiconductor industry is closely monitoring macroeconomic uncertainty, AI-fueled demand for chip innovations is driving investments in capacity expansions and leading-edge production."
Expanding rapidly
In the wafer fab equipment segment, sales are projected to increase 6.2% to $110.8 billion in 2025, up from the record of $104.3 billion in sales in 2024. Looking ahead to 2026, this segment will grow by a whopping 10.2%, reaching $122.1 billion due to capacity expansion in logic and memory to support AI applications.
In the back-end segment, equipment sales will rise 23.2% in 2025 to a new record $9.3 billion, up from the 2024 growth of 20.3%. Assembly and packaging equipment sales grew 25.4 in 2024 and will increase another 7.7% to $5.4 billion in 2025.
In 2026, back-end equipment sales will grow to another 5.0% and assembly and packaging sales will increase 15.0%, for three consecutive years of growth.
SEMI said this growth will be driven by complexity of device architectures and the robust performance requirements for AI and high-bandwidth memory semiconductors.
The regions thriving
Not surprising, the main growth areas in the world are where most of the semiconductor manufacturing is currently accomplished — China, Taiwan and Korea.
China led all regions in 2023 and will likely continue to lead in 2025 in terms of capital equipment spending. However, Europe is expected to see significant increases in equipment spending starting in 2025.
