Global Fab Equipment Spending Will Be The Main Driver In Mainland China

According  to the latest content of the “Global Fab Forecast Report” announced at  the end of February 2018, global fab equipment spending will increase by  5% in 2019 and will continue to grow substantially for the fourth  consecutive year. Unless  the original plan is drastically changed, mainland China will be the  main driver for the growth of equipment spending for global fabs in 2018  and 2019. The global fab investment situation is strong. Since the mid-1990s,  the industry has not seen a record of three-year growth in equipment  spending.


SEMI  (International Semiconductor Industry Association) predicts that global  fab equipment spending will be topped by Samsung in 2018 and 2019, but  the investment amount is not as high as 2017. In  contrast, in order to support multinational and local fab projects, fab  equipment spending in mainland China in 2018 will increase by 57% from  the previous year and by 60% in 2019. The amount of equipment spending in mainland China is expected to  surpass South Korea by 2019 and become the highest spending area in the  world.


Following  the record amount of investment in 2017, Korean fab equipment spending  will drop by 9% to 18 billion U.S. dollars in 2018, and will drop by 14%  in 2019 to 16 billion U.S. dollars, but spending in both years will  exceed 2017. Before the year. Regarding Taiwan, which has the world’s third-largest wafer fab  investment, wafer equipment spending will decline by 10% in 2018 to  approximately US$10 billion, but it is expected to rebound by 15% in  2019 to more than US$11 billion.


As  the previously built fabs entered the equipment-installation phase, the  spending on wafer fab equipment in mainland China continued to  increase. There were 26 wafer fabs that started to set records, and  equipment will be installed one after another this year and next. However,  local companies are expected to increase wafer fab investment in 2019,  which will increase from 33% in 2017 to 45% in 2019.