Recently, in view of the abnormal demand for semiconductors, ESIA is studying the trends related to the capacity of global semiconductor production areas. The percentage comes from the monthly wafer start-up, and the capacity is normalized to 200 mm wafer equivalent.

As shown in the figure below, in 1995, 26.1% of the world's Fab capacity was located in the United States. By 2015, that number will drop to 12.6%, and it looks like the share will be smaller and smaller. Japan's market share has fallen sharply since it occupied 40.2% in 1995, with 18.5% in 2015. However, the Chinese mainland is moving forward. In 1995, the region accounted for only 1.7% of the market share, and by 2015, the number has risen to 14.4%, and is still growing.

The five Fab production capacity accounts for half of the country's global market.

 
In February this year, IC insights released a new global wafer capacity 2021-2025 report, which provides in-depth, detailed analysis and forecast of IC industry capacity by wafer size, process node, region and product type. The report includes the ranking of the top 25 Fab leaders (based on the monthly installed capacity of 200 mm equivalent).

The top five wafer capacity leaders have at least 1.5 million wafers per month (see Figure 1). In December 2020, the total capacity of the top five companies accounted for 54% of the total global wafer capacity, up 1 percentage point from 53% in 2019.In contrast, in 2009, the top 10 wafer capacity leaders accounted for the total global capacity 54% of the world's production capacity, and the top five wafers account for 36% of the world's production capacity.

Figure 1

After entering the top five, the wafer capacity of other semiconductor leaders declined rapidly. Intel (884k wafer / month), UMC (772k wafer / month), Texas Instruments and SMIC ranked in the top 10 A bit.

Samsung has the largest installed wafer capacity, with 3.1 million 200 mm equivalent wafers per month. This accounts for 14.7% of the world's total capacity. Capacity growth in 2020 appears to be lower than expected as part of the company's line 13 fab is excluded from 2020 as part of the plant converts from DRAM to CMOS image sensor production in 2020. If all line 13 is included, Samsung's capacity growth will be 11%. Most of Samsung's huge expenditures in 2020 will appear in 2021, especially the $10.5 billion of total expenditures in 2020 will be spent in the fourth quarter of 2020.

The second largest wafer generation plant in the world is TSMC, with a monthly capacity of about 2.7 million pieces, accounting for 13.1% of the total global capacity. In 2020, the company opened its first two phases of the new plant complex near the fanb 14 plant in Tainan. Phase 1 and phase 2 of Fab 18 are in bulk production and facilities in phase 3-6 are under construction. Taiji power also opened the 10 phase production line in fab 15 in Taichung in 2020.

By the end of 2020, micro will be the third in energy production, with more than 1.9 million wafers, accounting for 9.3% of the global capacity. The company's capital expenditure in 2020 is mainly for more advanced equipment upgrades to existing wafer plants, but new capacity has been added to the plants in Hiroshima, Japan and Taiwan, Taiwan, China. A second plant is being built in Manassas, Virginia, where it produces long life cycle products.

Sk Hynix, the fourth largest wafer factory by the end of 2020, has a monthly wafer processing capacity of nearly 1.9 million (9.0% of the global total capacity), of which more than 80% of which is used to manufacture DRAM and NAND flash chips. In 2019, the company completed two new large wafer factories in Changzhou, Korea and Wuxi, China. The new Fab M16 in Incheon, South Korea, will begin mass production in 2021.

The fifth largest company is another memory IC supplier, kioxia, with 1.6 million wafers per month (7.7 percent of the global total capacity), Large amount of NAND flash memory including western data of its wafer factory investment and technology development partner. In 2020, the partner opened a new 300 mm wafer factory in North Kami, Japan. Fab 7 of ykkaichi complex in Japan will be started in 2021.

The five Fab generation plants in the industry - TSMC, UMC, globalfoundations, core international and Powerchip (including nexchip) - are ranked in the top 12 capacity. By December 2020, the total capacity of these five generation plants is about 5.1 million pieces per month, accounting for 24% of the total capacity of global wafer plants.