On the 13th, International E-commerce News reported that although global semiconductor manufacturing equipment sales have decreased by 6.1% compared to the previous year, with support from the front-end and back-end sectors, it is expected that semiconductor manufacturing equipment will resume growth next year, and sales are expected to reach a new high of $124 billion by 2025, according to the latest report released by the International Semiconductor Industry Association (SEMI).

On Tuesday local time, the International Semiconductor Industry Association SEMI released a report titled "Annual Total Semiconductor Equipment Forecast".

The report points out that although global semiconductor manufacturing equipment sales are expected to reach $100 billion in 2023, it is a 6.1% decrease from the industry record of $107.4 billion set in 2022. But with the support of the front-end and back-end sectors, it is expected that semiconductor manufacturing equipment will resume growth in 2024, and sales are expected to reach a new high of $124 billion by 2025.

SEMI President and CEO Ajit Manocha said, "Due to the cyclical nature of the semiconductor market, we expect a temporary contraction in 2023." "2024 will be a transitional year. We expect a strong rebound in 2025, driven by capacity expansion, new wafer fab projects, and high demand for advanced technology and solutions in the front-end and back-end sectors."

After setting a record of $94 billion in sales last year, the wafer fab equipment sector, including wafer processing, wafer fab facilities, and mask/mask equipment, is expected to decline by 3.7% to $90.6 billion by 2023. This contraction marks a significant improvement compared to 2023. SEMI predicts a decrease of 18.8% in its mid year semiconductor equipment total forecast (OEM perspective). The increase was mainly due to the strong equipment expenditure in Chinese Mainland. Due to limited increase in memory capacity and the suspension of mature capacity expansion, it is expected that the sales of wafer fab equipment segment in 2024 will slightly increase by 3% on the revised 2023 base. With new wafer fab projects, capacity expansion, and technology migration driving investment close to $110 billion, it is expected that growth will further increase by 18% in 2025.

Due to challenging macroeconomic conditions and weak demand for semiconductors, sales in the backend equipment segment began to decline in 2022 and continued until 2023. By 2023, the semiconductor testing equipment market sales are expected to shrink by 15.9% to $6.3 billion, while assembly and packaging equipment sales are expected to decline by 31% to $4 billion. It is expected that the testing equipment and assembly and packaging equipment fields will grow by 13.9% and 24.3% respectively next year. The backend niche market is expected to continue to grow in 2025, with sales of testing equipment increasing by 17% and assembly and packaging sales increasing by 20%.

By application, SEMI points out that although the terminal market is relatively weak, the sales of OEM and logic application equipment account for more than half of the total revenue of wafer fabs. It is expected to grow by 6% year-on-year by 2023, reaching $56.3 billion. With the slowdown of mature technology expansion and an increase in expenditure on cutting-edge technologies, it is expected that the application field will shrink by 2% by 2024. Driven by the expansion of production capacity and the introduction of new equipment architectures, investment in OEM and logic equipment is expected to increase by 15% by 2025, reaching $63.3 billion.

As expected, there will be the largest decline in memory related capital expenditures in 2023, with NAND equipment sales expected to decrease by 49% to $8.8 billion in 2023, but surge by 21% to $10.7 billion in 2024 and an additional 51% to $16.2 billion in 2025. DRAM equipment sales are expected to remain stable, with growth of 1% and 3% in 2023 and 2024, respectively. It is expected that DRAM device sales will increase by 20% in 2025, reaching $15.5 billion, driven by HBM high bandwidth storage.

SEMI predicts that by 2025, Chinese Mainland, Taiwan, China and South Korea will still be the top three destinations for equipment spending. It is estimated that in 2023, the amount of equipment shipped to Chinese Mainland will exceed the record 30 billion US dollars. Although equipment expenditure in most tracking regions is expected to decline in 2023, and then resume growth in 2024, Chinese Mainland is expected to moderate contraction in 2024 after a large amount of investment in 2023.