글로벌 전자 산업 공급망을 대표하는 산업 협회인 SEMI는 최근 발표한 최신 전세계 팹 전망 보고서(World Fab Forecast)를 통해 지속적으로 증가하는 칩 수요에 대응하기 위해 반도체 산업의 생산능력은 올해 6%, 내년 7% 성장해, 2025년에 월 3,370만장(8인치 웨이퍼 환산 기준)에 도달할 것으로 전망했다.
Korea is expected to rank 3rd with 5.4 million units sold per month in 2025
AI HBM demand surges, memory expansion
In order to respond to the continuously increasing demand for chips, including double-digit increases in demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips of 5㎚ or less and ultra-fine advanced semiconductors of 2㎚ or less, semiconductor production capacity is also expected to continue to increase through 2025.
SEMI, an industry association representing the global electronics industry supply chain, recently released its latest World Fab Forecast report, predicting that in order to respond to the continuously increasing demand for chips, the semiconductor industry's production capacity will grow 6% this year and 7% next year, reaching 33.7 million units per month (based on 8-inch wafers) in 2025.
Production capacity for advanced semiconductors below the 5nm node is expected to increase by 13% this year to meet demand for chips for AI.
Chipmakers including Intel, Samsung Electronics, and TSMC are expected to start producing chips that adopt Gate-All-Around (GAA) in the 2nm nano process to increase the power efficiency of semiconductors in particular, and production capacity for advanced semiconductors is expected to increase by 17% in 2025.
“The proliferation of AI, from cloud computing to edge devices, is driving a race to develop high-performance chips and expanding global semiconductor manufacturing capacity,” said Ajit Manocha, CEO of SEMI. “This will ultimately lead to greater demand for semiconductors.” “We are creating a virtuous cycle by encouraging investment in the semiconductor industry, which in turn can lead to the creation of more advanced AI chips,” he said.
Looking at production capacity by region, the production capacity of Chinese chipmakers is expected to increase by 15% this year to 8.85 million units per month, and then grow by another 14% in 2025 to 10.1 million units, nearly one-third of the entire semiconductor industry, marking the second consecutive year of double-digit growth.
Despite the potential risk of oversupply, Chinese chipmakers continue to invest in expanding production capacity, with major chipmakers including Huahong Group, Nexchip, Sien Integrated, SMIC and CXMT leading the charge.
Most other regions are expected to see capacity growth of less than 5% in 2025.
Taiwan is expected to come in second place with a 4% growth in 2025, reaching 5.8 million units per month.
South Korea is expected to surpass 5 million units per month for the first time in 2024, before rising 7% to 5.4 million units per month in 2025, taking third place.
In 2025, Japan is expected to sell 4.7 million units (3% growth), the US 3.2 million units (5% growth), Europe and the Middle East 2.7 million units (4% growth), and Southeast Asia 1.8 million units (4% growth).
Looking at production capacity by segment, the production capacity of the foundry sector is expected to grow by 11% in 2024 and 10% in 2025, reaching 12.7 million units per month in 2026, driven by Intel's investment in foundries and the expansion of production capacity in China.
As demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) grows rapidly with the rise of AI servers, unprecedented production capacity expansion is taking place in the memory sector.
In particular, the industry is demanding higher density HBM stacks on a single chip. This is a situation where 8 to 12 DRAM dies are required.
Accordingly, DRAM manufacturers are investing boldly in this field, which is expected to grow by 9% both this year and in 2025.
On the other hand, the market recovery of 3D NAND is still sluggish, with no increase in production capacity in 2024 and expected growth of 5% in 2025.
As the adoption of AI applications on edge devices increases, the DRAM capacity of major smartphones is expected to increase from 8GB to 12GB, and the industry predicts that laptops using AI devices will require at least 16GB of DRAM.
As this trend extends to more edge devices, demand for DRAM is expected to grow further.