Fabs valued at nearly $50 billion to start construction in 2020
MILPITAS, CA—Investments in new fab projects starting construction in 2020 is expected to reach nearly $50 billion, up about $12 billion from 2019, according to the latest update of the World Fab Forecast from SEMI. See figure 1.
Facilities that commence construction in 2019 will begin equipping as early as the first half of 2020, with some starting to ramp production as early as mid-2020. These new fab projects will add more than 740,000 wafers per month (in 200mm equivalents). Most of the additional capacity will be dedicated to foundries (37%) followed by memory (24%) and MPU (17%). Of the 15 new fab projects in 2019, about half are for 200mm wafer sizes. See figure 2.
Published by the Industry Research and Statistics Group at SEMI, the World Fab Forecast covers new, planned and existing fabs as well as fab spending for construction and equipping, capacity expansion, and technology nodes by quarter and by product type with more than 1,300 front-end fab listings. All told, 192 updates have been made to the report, including the addition of 64 new facilities and lines since its previous publication in June 2019. The World Fab Forecast also includes projections for fabs and lines starting construction beyond 2020.