Global silicon wafer shipments are set to grow about 5.4% in 2025 to 12,824 million square inches (MSI), according to new data from trade organization SEMI.
The better news is that silicon wafer shipments will continue to see steady growth through 2028 when shipments will reach a new industry record of 15,485 MSI.
SEMI said the growth in silicon wafer shipments is driven by AI-related growth including epitaxial wafers for edge logic devices and polished wafers for high bandwidth memory (HBM).
Meanwhile, non-AI application wafer shipments are seeing the start of a gradual recovery from a recent downcycle. Growth in non-AI application wafer shipments is expected to continue to growth through 2028. This will be driven by data center and edge computing applications, SEMI said.
These growth numbers do not include non-polished or reclaimed wafers. They only include polished silicon wafers and epitaxial silicon wafers that are shipping by wafer manufacturers to end users.
SEMI said the shipment forecast was developed based on input from the Silicon Manufacturers Group (SMD), a sub-committee inside SEMI.
