In the past two quarters, the demand in the global chip market has declined, and IC design companies are busy eliminating inventory. Compared with the same period in 2021, the capacity utilization rate of wafer foundries has produced a huge difference. Typical representatives are TSMC and UMC, TSMC The mass production progress of the latest 3nm process is slow, and major 4nm and 5nm customers have also begun to cut orders; UMC’s mature process revenue has declined for two consecutive months, and the capacity utilization rate has dropped to 90%. , In stark contrast to the situation of upward revenue.
In recent years, the situation in the semiconductor industry has changed a lot, especially the relationship between supply and demand, which is more complicated than a few years ago. However, these short-to-medium-term changes did not disrupt the mid-to-long-term planning of the semiconductor industry in various countries and regions, mainly reflected in the infrastructure construction represented by fabs, because they will compete for the dominance of semiconductor manufacturing in the future.
According to statistics, from 2022 to 2025, 41 wafer fabs will be built around the world, and most of these new fabs are concentrated in the United States, mainland China, Taiwan and Europe. Among them, Intel, Micron, Texas Instruments, TSMC, and Samsung have aggressively expanded production in the United States. In the next three years, the United States will add the largest number of new fabs, reaching 9, including 8 12-inch factories and one 8-inch factory.
In the United States, Intel has invested US$20 billion in building two advanced process fabs; Micron has invested US$15 billion in a new memory fab in Idaho and has started construction. In addition, the company recently announced that it will Invest $100 billion in the next 20 years to build four fabs in New York State; TSMC is building a 5nm process fab in the United States; Samsung will invest $17 billion in a new foundry in Tyler, Texas to compete with TSMC.
In Taiwan, China, TSMC builds new factories every year, including fabs and packaging factories. It is currently expanding its 3nm process fab in Tainan, and a new 2nm factory is also under planning. In 2021, TSMC will start construction of 7 factories around the world, and plan 5 factories in 2022; in March 2021, PSMC will start construction of a 12-inch wafer fab in Tongluo, with a total investment of NT$278 billion , will be put into production in phases from 2023; in 2021, Nanya Branch will spend NT$300 billion to build a 12-inch wafer fab in Taishan Nanlin Science and Technology Park, New Taipei City, for the production of 10nm-level DRAM, and it is expected to be completed in 2023. Produce. In addition, Winbond and other manufacturers are also building new 12-inch wafer fabs in Taiwan.
In mainland China, the construction of fabs has been in full swing, especially SMIC, which is preparing to build 12-inch fabs in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Tianjin;
Recently, China Resources Microelectronics started to build a 12-inch wafer fab in Shenzhen, with a total investment of 22 billion yuan in the first phase, which will be used to produce analog chips and power devices with mature processes above 40nm. In addition, a number of new IDM and foundry projects are underway.
In Europe, the European Union hopes to increase the proportion of locally produced chips to more than 20% of the global market by 2030 and to master the 2nm process technology. Therefore, wafer foundries and IDMs represented by TSMC have built factories one after another, especially in Germany is known as Dresden, the Silicon Valley of Saxony. Infineon, NXP, GlobalFoundries, Bosch and other companies have built fabs there. The next one may be TSMC. In addition, Intel announced a plan to invest 95 billion US dollars in Europe in the next 10 years to build 8 fabs. At present, there is no clear information about the specific plans for these 8 fabs. However, Intel may The location of two of the fabs will be announced, and Ireland, which has already had a huge investment, is likely to be a key investment area.
In addition to the above four major regions, South Korea and Southeast Asia also have some fab construction plans. For example, Samsung already has 5 factories in South Korea and the United States. It has acquired more land and can build up to 10 fabs, most of which are located in South Korea. . In addition, manufacturers represented by Infineon, ON Semiconductor, GlobalFoundries and UMC have also expanded some production lines in Southeast Asia.
Fab multi-dimensional transfer
From the construction of these fabs above, we can see two more prominent features: First, most of the new fabs are 12 inches, and there are fewer 8 inches; second, it is different from before 2019. At present, the construction of new factories is concentrated in mainland China, and in the past two years, the number of fab projects in the United States and Europe has increased significantly, and the momentum has overshadowed China.
In addition to the above two points, there is another point, that is, the impact of the epidemic on the capacity transfer of fabs is obvious: the demand for consumer chips fluctuates sharply, and the transfer of production capacity between consumer and HPC (high-performance computing) chips has accelerated.
8 inches to 12 inches transfer
Although most of the new fabs are 12-inch, this does not mean that the 8-inch fabs have shrunk in an all-round way. On the contrary, from a global perspective, the production capacity of 8-inch wafers has been increasing, especially in the past two years. After the shortage of supply, the importance of 8-inch fabs reappeared. According to SEMI statistics, from 2021 to 2025, the global 8-inch fab production capacity will increase by 20%. However, relatively speaking, the growth rate of 12-inch fabs is faster and the number is larger.
According to TrendForce statistics, in 2022, global wafer foundry production capacity will increase by about 14% year-on-year. Among them, 8-inch capacity expansion is less cost-effective, with an increase of about 6%, while 12-inch growth will reach 18%. Among the new 12-inch production capacity, about 65% are mature processes, with an annual growth rate of 20%. It can be seen that in 2022, most of the wafer foundries will focus on the expansion of 12-inch wafer production capacity, and mature Process-based.
The number of 8-inch fabs in the world reached its peak in 2007, after which many factories were closed or transformed into 12-inch fabs. In recent years, more and more manufacturers have stated that they will not build new 8-inch factories by themselves. The main reason is that it takes about US$1 billion to invest in an 8-inch factory, and most of the 8-inch factories of other competitors have been depreciated. The new factory does not have a cost advantage, and the expansion is mostly through mergers and acquisitions, purchasing second-hand equipment, and improving production efficiency.
Compared with 8-inch wafers, 12-inch wafers have many advantages.
Divided by chip type, power management ICs, driver ICs, fingerprint recognition ICs, CMOS image sensors (CIS), MOSFETs, and power devices mainly use 8-inch wafers, while 12-inch chips are mostly high-performance computing chips with a process below 90nm , such as CPU, GPU, mobile phone AP and Netcom chips.
The surface areas of the two sizes of wafers are different. Assuming the same yield standard, a 12-inch wafer can produce more than 200 ICs, which is twice that of an 8-inch wafer, and the production cost does not need to be greatly increased. , which is more cost-effective. But also because the number of ICs produced by a 12-inch wafer is relatively large, corresponding to the terminal demand, there must be enough support. This is also the reason why many manufacturers will stay at 8 inches, especially for small and medium-sized IC design manufacturers. The number of chips is limited, and 12-inch wafers are not economical.
In recent years, with the increasing market demand for storage and logic chips, especially the popularization of 14nm and more advanced processes, the market demand for 12-inch wafers has become increasingly urgent, and the cost efficiency in this regard has become more prominent. Therefore, the transition from 8-inch to 12-inch wafers began to accelerate.
According to IC Insights statistics, from 2018 to 2021, the number of 12-inch fabs that can be mass-produced worldwide will increase every year, reaching 123 by 2021, while this number was 98 in 2016, basically all new construction of the fabs will be used to produce memory that is currently in short supply, or to enhance existing foundry capabilities. As of the end of 2016, 12-inch wafers contributed 63.6% of the global fab capacity, and by the end of 2021, this figure rose to about 71%.
Not only in terms of storage and logic chips, manufacturers of analog and analog-digital hybrid chips are also increasingly shifting to 12-inch production lines, typical representatives are Texas Instruments (TI) and Analog Devices Inc(ADI).
