“There’s a horrible uncertainty about this year which we really don’t know the answers to,“ said Malcolm Penn, CEO of Future Horizons, at IFS earlier this month. The industry’s growth this year has been driven by a strong memory recovery, particularly for HBM. However, unit shipments are below the trendline, and demand is still soft.
Although fab capacity has increased again to about 80-90% according to Future Horizons, the weak demand doesn’t warrant building up new fabs to the extent announced a couple of years back.
After all, the subsidized construction of chip fabs in the U.S. and Europe to strengthen supply chain security is not as easy as initially assumed, as technology expert Tim Culpan aptly outlined. Once wafers come out of a fab, they are sent to testing, slicing and packaging, which today is most likely happening in Taiwan and then it's sent on for assembly.
So, before a product even leaves the factory, that one chip tours three or four countries and is handled by half a dozen suppliers. Thus, it’s more important than ever to build and maintain trusted, global relationships that are needed for successful global commerce.
Still, forecasters agree that the semiconductor market is recovering, and NAND prices are increasing – with DRAM the situation is more complicated.
Read on to find out more and reach out if you have questions on the memory market or are looking for a quote.