Global semiconductor market capacity forecast

Based on the current status of the global semiconductor industry, Gartner has made the following predictions for the advanced manufacturing process based on 12 inches and the traditional manufacturing process based on 8 inches:
 
• 12-inch capacity increase is mainly 5nm and below, 55nm/65nm
 
The production capacity of advanced processes of 5nm and below will increase the most. In 2021, an upgraded version of 5nm, 4nm, will appear, and the target for next year is 3nm. At the same time, 55nm/65nm will also be a relatively large growth point. The main reason is that the current demand for 55nm is very large, so even though it is an older process, the demand will still have a relatively large increase in the next few years. In addition, 28nm, 14nm, and 16nm all have greater opportunities for increase.
 
• The traditional manufacturing process is concentrated on 8-inch wafers, which is most in short supply
Most of the traditional manufacturing processes are concentrated on 8-inch wafers, but the current 8-inch wafer production capacity is very scarce, and investment in new plants is insufficient, and the main focus is on expansion. This is because the 8-inch overcapacity in the past many years has caused prices to "fall and fall", and the trough period was only about 300 U.S. dollars. Many factories, especially some semiconductor companies in Japan, have closed their 8-inch production lines. At the same time, 5G mobile phones have a relatively large increase in demand for PMIC and analog circuits. Especially PMIC, its manufacturing process is concentrated in 180/150nm, mainly 8 inches and a small part of 12 inches, there will be no significant improvement. The increase in demand has immediately led to a very serious shortage of Power-related devices.
 
At present, there is no investment in a new plant for the 8-inch production line, and most of the investment is for expansion. The expansion is actually to meet the increasing urgent demand, but to completely solve the problem of the shortage of 8-inch production, it is still necessary to shift the 8-inch production capacity to 12-inch. Because the 12-inch production capacity is large, its output can reach more than 2 times under the same time conditions.
 
Global semiconductor investment will also have a larger leap this year. In the past few years, 2019 has shown a downward trend. Due to shortages and shortages, there will be a substantial increase of more than 20% in 2021.
 
These growths are mainly reflected in the following aspects: first, advanced manufacturing processes, and the 28nm process that is currently in short supply; second, investment in NAND Flash will increase significantly, and the situation of DRAM is slightly better, because DRAM manufacturers are in order to control the entire market. The high price, its investment is relatively conservative; third, some domestic semiconductor companies are shifting to 12 inches, that is, using 12-inch factories to produce products below 90nm or below 55nm.