Taiwan is set to surpass Japan to become the world’s largest source of IC fab capacity in the wafer manufacturing industry by mid-2011, the U.S.-based semiconductor market research company IC Insights said Nov. 11.
According to the firm’s just released Global Wafer Capacity 2010-11 report, Taiwan wafer manufacturers have virtually closed the gap with their Japanese counterparts this year. Taiwan’s monthly installed 8-inch wafer capacity reached 2.66 million in July, just below Japan’s 2.71 million.
The report said that not so long ago, Taiwan was seen merely as a provider of back-end assembly and test services for the semiconductor sector.
However, in the last two decades, “the country has molded itself to be a primary source of advanced front-end chip manufacturing services,” the report said.
By mid-2011, Taiwan’s monthly 8-inch wafer capacity is forecast to hit 3 million, ahead of Japan’s projected 2.78 million wafers. The gap is anticipated to increase further over the next several years, with Taiwan’s capacity hitting 4.08 million by mid-2015, for a 25-percent share of the global market to Japan’s 18-percent share, according to the report.
IC Insight said continued growth in Taiwan’s IC fab capacity is to be expected, given the country’s “focus on providing foundry services to a large variety of fabless IC suppliers, ‘fab-lite’ IDMs and electronic system producers.” (SB)