Driven by demand for advanced processes and the expansion of semiconductor production capacity, semiconductor equipment spending in 2022 is expected to surpass $100 billion for the first time, making it a record-breaking year.

According to an announcement made at Semicon West 2022, hosted by SEMI, an industry association representing the global electronics industry supply chain, global semiconductor equipment spending is expected to reach $117.5 billion, a 14.7% increase from $102.5 billion in 2021.

In addition, according to this forecast, global semiconductor equipment spending is expected to grow to $120.8 billion in 2023.

Growth is expected in both the front-end and back-end semiconductor equipment sectors. In particular, the wafer fab equipment sector, which includes wafer processes, fab facilities, and mask/reticle equipment, is expected to reach an all-time high of $101 billion this year, growing 15.4% year-over-year, before increasing by 3.2% to $104.5 billion in 2023.

“Due to the semiconductor industry’s continued efforts to expand production capacity, the wafer fab equipment sector will surpass $100 billion for the first time in 2022,” said Ajit Manocha, CEO of SEMI, adding that “continued investment in digital infrastructure is driving the industry’s record growth.”

Driven by demand for advanced processes, semiconductor equipment spending for the foundry and logic sectors is expected to grow 20.6% year-over-year to $55.2 billion in 2022 and increase 7.9% to $59.5 billion in 2023. This accounts for more than half of total semiconductor wafer fab equipment spending.

Strong demand for memory semiconductors is driving growth in the DRAM and NAND equipment sectors this year. The DRAM equipment sector is expected to grow 8% to $17.1 billion in 2022, while the NAND equipment market is projected to reach $21.1 billion this year, growing 6.8%. In 2023, spending on DRAM and NAND equipment is expected to decrease by 7.7% and 2.4%, respectively.

Assembly and packaging equipment is expected to grow by an additional 8.2% this year to $7.8 billion, following an 86.5% growth in 2021, and is projected to decrease by 0.5% to $7.7 billion in 2023. The semiconductor test equipment market is expected to grow by 12.1% in 2022 to $8.8 billion and is projected to rise by 0.4% in 2023 due to demand for high-performance computing.

Regionally, Taiwan, China, and Korea are expected to maintain their positions as the three major markets in 2022. Taiwan is expected to regain the top spot in 2022 and 2023, followed by China and South Korea. Additionally, semiconductor equipment spending in all regions, excluding other regions, is projected to increase in 2022 and 2023.