Global sales of equipment for semiconductor manufacturing by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) is forecast to reach a record high in 2025 to $133 billion — a growth of 13.7% year-on-year, according to recent data from SEMI.
The even better news is that equipment sales are expected to continue in the next two years reaching a projected $145 billion in 2026 and $156 billion in 2027.
What’s driving this investment? Artificial intelligence (AI) is the biggest expenditure following by edge logic, memory and the adoption of advanced packaging technologies.
"Global semiconductor equipment sales show robust momentum, with both the front-end and back-end segments projected to see three consecutive years of growth, culminating in total sales surpassing $150 billion for the first time in 2027," said Ajit Manocha, SEMI president and CEO. "Investments to support AI demand have been stronger than anticipated since our midyear forecast, leading us to boost the outlook for all segments."
WFE sets new record
Wafer fab equipment (WFE) will grow 11.0% to $115.7 billion in 2025, up from a previous record of $104 billion in sales in 2024, SEMI said.
This reflects stronger than expected investments in DRAM and high-bandwidth memory (HBM) to support AI computing.
In the next two years, WFE spending is project to expand 9.0% in 2026 and 7.3% in 2027, reaching a new record of $135.2 billion as sales increase for advanced logic and memory, SEMI said.
Test equipment also rises
Meanwhile, strong recovery in semiconductor test equipment is projected in 2025 with sales reaching $11.2 billion, up a whopping 48.1% from 2024.
Assembly and packaging equipment sales also are projected to rise 19.6% to $6.4 billion.
Back-end growth is expected to continue in the future with test equipment sales growing 12.0% in 2026 and 7.1% in 2027. Assembly and packaging sales are forecast to grow 9.2% in 2026 and 6.9% in 2027.
The adoption of advanced and heterogeneous packaging and growing complexity of device architectures are seen as the main drivers in this segment as well as AI and HBM semiconductors, SEMI said.
