Source: official account: semiconductor core news, the content is integrated from SEMI by semiconductor core news (ID: MooreNEW)
The SEMI report points out that the global semiconductor manufacturing industry has improved, and it is expected that growth will strengthen in the second half of the year.
The latest report from the Semiconductor Industry Institute (SEMI) states that multiple indicators indicate an improvement in the global semiconductor manufacturing industry, with rising sales of electronic products, stabilizing inventory, and increased installed capacity of wafer fabs. It is expected that growth will strengthen in the second half of the year.
The Semiconductor Industry Monitor (SMM) report for the first quarter of 2024, jointly produced by SEMI and TechInsights, indicates that electronic product sales increased by 1% year-on-year in the previous quarter and are expected to increase by 5% annually this quarter; Last quarter, integrated circuit (IC) sales increased by 22% year-on-year, and this quarter is expected to surge by 21%, mainly due to the increase in shipments of high-performance computing (HPC) chips and the continuous improvement in memory chip prices; IC inventory also stabilized last quarter and is expected to improve this quarter.
New Sail
The installed capacity of the wafer fab increased by 1.2% last quarter and is expected to increase by 1.4% this quarter, with an estimated increase of over 40 million 12 inch wafers per quarter. The productivity growth rate of Chinese Mainland is still the highest in all regions of the world, but the productivity of wafer fabs (especially the mature process nodes) is still a major concern. It is expected that there will not be many signs of recovery in the first half of the year. The utilization rate of memory chip factories in the previous quarter was lower than expected, as the industry continued to control supply.
Semiconductor capital expenditure also conforms to the trend of wafer fab utilization rate, maintaining conservatism. After a 17% annual decrease in the fourth quarter of last year, it decreased by 11% in the first quarter of this year, and is expected to grow slightly by 0.7% in the second quarter. On a quarterly basis, it is estimated that asset expenditures related to memory chips will increase by 8% this quarter, and the growth rate of capital expenditures for non memory chips will be slightly higher.
According to Zeng Ruiyu, Senior Director of Market Intelligence at SEMI, the demand in some semiconductor fields is gradually recovering, but the pace of recovery is not uniform. Currently, the equipment with the highest demand includes artificial intelligence (AI) chips and high bandwidth (HBM) memory chips, resulting in increased investment and production capacity in these fields. However, the impact of AI chips on the growth of IC shipments is still limited because they rely only on a few key suppliers.
Boris Metodiev, head of market analysis at TechInsights, said that semiconductor demand in the first half of this year was mixed, with a surge in demand for generative AI driving a rebound in memory and logic chips, but analog, discrete, and optoelectronic chips all slightly pulled back to correction due to slow consumer market recovery and weakened demand in the automotive and industrial markets.
McDuff believes that with AI edge computing expected to boost consumer demand, the global semiconductor industry is expected to fully recover in the second half of the year, and the automotive and industrial markets are also expected to return to growth later this year, thanks to the decline in interest rates boosting consumer purchasing power and inventory decline.
*Disclaimer: The content of this article is the author's personal opinion. Reproduction is only intended to convey a different viewpoint and does not represent the company's endorsement or support of that viewpoint. If you have any objections, please feel free to contact us.