Global silicon wafer shipments in the first quarter of 2024 declined due to continued declines in fab utilization rates and inventory adjustments.

Global silicon wafer shipments are expected to drop 5.4% year-over-year to 2.834 billion square inches in the first quarter of 2024, according to a report tracked by SEMI, an industry association representing the global electronics industry supply chain.

This is a 13.2% drop from the previous year's record of 3.265 billion square inches.

“Continued declines in IC fab utilization and inventory adjustments in the first quarter of this year resulted in negative shipment growth across all wafer diameters, with polished wafer shipments declining slightly more than EPI wafers on a year-over-year basis,” said Lee Chungwei, president of SEMI SMG and vice president and chief auditor of GlobalWafers. “However, some fabs are expected to turn around their decline in the fourth quarter of 2023 as increasing adoption of artificial intelligence accelerates demand for advanced node logic products and memory for data centers.”