The world's top-five wafer capacity leaders each had capacity of more than 1,000,000 wafer starts per month, with their combined capacity representing 53% of the world's total wafer capacity at the end of 2019, according to IC Insights.

In contrast, the top-5 capacity leaders in 2009 held 36% of worldwide capacity, IC Insights said.

As of December 2019, Samsung had the most installed wafer capacity with 2.9 million 200mm-equivalent wafers per month, IC Insights indicated. That represented 15.0% of the world's total capacity and about two-thirds of it was used for the fabrication of DRAM and NAND flash memory devices. Major construction projects underway include large new fabs at its sites in Hwaseong and Pyeongtaek, Korea, and in Xian, China.

Second in line was TSMC, the largest pure-play foundry in the world, with about 2.5 million wafers per month capacity, or 12.8% of total worldwide capacity, IC Insights said. The company has been adding a new facility at its Fab 15 complex (the Phase 9/Phase 10 building) in Taichung, Taiwan, and building a new fab (Fab 18) near its Fab 14 complex in Tainan, Taiwan.

Micron had the third largest amount of capacity at the end of 2019 with a little more than 1.8 million wafers, or 9.4% of worldwide capacity, IC Insights noted. Micron's growth in capacity for 2019 was boosted by the opening of a new 300mm wafer fab at its site in Singapore. The company also acquired Intel's share of their IM Flash joint-venture fab in Lehi, Utah. In 2020, Micron plans to open a second fab in Manassas, Virginia.

The fourth largest capacity holder at the end of 2019 was SK Hynix, IC Insights continued, with a monthly wafer capacity of nearly 1.8 million wafers (8.9% of total worldwide capacity). More than 80% of it was used to make DRAM and NAND flash chips. In 2019, the company completed construction on its new M15 wafer fab in Cheongju, Korea, and a new fab (C2F) at its site in Wuxi, China. Its next big fab project is Fab M16 at its site in Icheon, Korea.

Rounding out the top 5 companies was memory IC supplier Kioxia (formerly Toshiba Memory) with 1.4 million wafers/month (7.2% of total worldwide capacity), including a substantial amount of NAND flash memory capacity for its fab investment and technology development partner Western Digital, according to IC Insights. The capacity for Toshiba Electronic Devices is not included in the Kioxia numbers.

By: DocMemory
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