semicon west overview
making their achievements all the more impressive. The truth is that lithography is now the key enabler of scaling and the costs involved to develop EUV lithography as well as 450mm platforms will cost billions. ASML has stuck its ground and avoided the 450mm issues for some time. No surprise that their 450mm road map appeared after the Intel announcement. Other major tool suppliers were turning envious eyes to the agreement but realise their fight is just to be involved in the 450mm pilot lines and qualification processes. Or else miss out on the next technology node completely. Nikon has been the only true competitor to ASML of late and the new arrangements will be seriously concerning the company.
Almost every discussion following the announcement involved 450mm and the technology challenges below 28nm. The main focus being lithography and 3D IC integration. In other words the enablers of Moore’s Law. There is plenty of discussion concerning the changing financial nature of the industry with concerns the Moore’s Law supposition has reached its limits but the events of the show demonstrate that the desire to maintain the doubling of transistors at half the price every two years still dictates technology goals. With estimated costs for 450 mm in the billions, let alone for lithography and packaging, the real concern is that it will not be technology that sees the end of Moore’s Law but the financial costs of continued scaling. The cost per transistor equations will be where the real story will be told.
Less players, more opportunities Of course the show contained much more than the talk of the future and SEMI outlined the expected growth for the global market. Korean and Taiwan are the only areas tipped to grow for 2012 but that is no surprise considering Samsung and the foundries are the only comparison for the might of Intel. SEMI projects semiconductor equipment sales will reach $42.4 billion in 2012 according to the mid-year edition of the SEMI Capital Equipment Forecast.
Driven by consumer demand for tablet, smartphone, and mobile devices, chipmakers will continue to purchase manufacturing technology equipment. The forecast indicates that, following a 9 percent market increase in 2011, the equipment market will contract by 2.6 percent in 2012. The year 2012 is likely to be the fourth highest spending year in history, with higher spending only in 2011 ($43.5 billion), 2007 ($42.8 billion) and 2000 ($47.7 billion). With $33.0 billion for 2012 forecasted for wafer processing equipment, it will be the second highest spending year ever for this segment, surpassed only by the $34.3 billion spent in 2011.
“We expect 2012 to post one of the highest rates of global investment for semiconductor manufacturing equipment. Following a multi-year market expansion, sales will again exceed $42 billion — just one billion short of last year’s spending rate as the industry absorbs new capacity,” said Denny McGuirk, the new president and CEO of SEMI. “We also forecast accelerated spending to exceed $46 billion in 2013.”
Wafer processing equipment, the largest product segment by dollar value, is expected to decrease 3.8 percent in 2012 to $33.0 billion. The forecast predicts that the market for both Test ($3.8 billion) and Assembly & Packaging ($3.4 billion) equipment will remain essentially flat (increase of 0.2 percent and 0.9 percent, respectively).
On the face of it these figures suggest minimal growth in the sort term. The industry is currently dominated by only a few players and the diversity along the value chain is but a show of its numbers a decade ago. Even though the concentration of capex is now in the hands of the
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