Spending on 300mm fab equipment will slowly recover in 2020 after the 2019 downturn and take off in 2021 to log a new record high topping US$60 billion, only to lag again in 2022 and rebound to an all-time peak in 2023, according to SEMI.

Most of the surges in fab equipment investment over the five-year outlook will be driven by memory (primarily NAND), foundry/logic, and power, SEMI noted.

SEMI also disclosed that Korea will head the list of top-spending regions followed by Taiwan and China, though Europe/Mideast and Southeast Asia are also expected to show healthy increases between 2019 and 2023.

In addition, the number of semiconductor fabs/lines in operation is expected to jump more than 30% from 136 in 2019 to 172 in 2023, and climb even higher to nearly 200 when lower probability fabs/lines are included in the count, SEMI said.

Offering projections through 2023, SEMI's 300mm fab outlook report details fab investments across construction and equipment, as well as fab capacities and technologies investment for DRAM, NAND, foundry, logic, and a host of other products manufactured on 300mm wafers.

By: DocMemory
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