The world's top 10 foundries, with annual growth rates of approximately 10% from 2020 to 2025, are focusing investments to expand 12-inch wafer capacity, which is expected to ease the chip supply shortage starting in the second half of 2023.

Market research firm TrendForce predicted that the chip shortage will ease starting in the second quarter of 2023 as 8-inch wafer fabs expand their 12-inch wafer capacity.

Chips produced on 8-inch wafers include power semiconductors (hereinafter referred to as PMICs), MCUs, power discretes (including MOSFETs and IGBTs), touch ICs, and audio codecs.

The deteriorating 8-inch wafer capacity since the second half of 2019 has led to a serious shortage.

In particular, the shortage of PMIC chips was found to be the most serious.

This has led to some products using 8-inch wafers being replaced by 12-inch ones.

TrendForce said that fabless companies such as MediaTek and Qualcomm are planning to change their PMICs, which are in severe supply shortage, to 12-inch 90/55μm.

It will likely take some time for the 8-inch wafer capacity shortage to improve, with 12-inch wafers replacing the existing 8-inch wafer capacity.

TrendForce predicts that the replacement period will be between the second half of next year and 2024.

Meanwhile, TrendForce said that 12-inch wafer production is expected to grow by an average of 10% annually, while 8-inch wafer production is expected to grow by 3.3%.