{"id":2070,"date":"2011-06-20T23:24:35","date_gmt":"2011-06-20T23:24:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.techdesignforums.com\/eda\/?p=2070"},"modified":"2014-06-27T20:54:20","modified_gmt":"2014-06-27T20:54:20","slug":"foundry-overcapacity-%e2%80%93-yes-it-could-happen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.techdesignforums.com\/practice\/technique\/foundry-overcapacity-%e2%80%93-yes-it-could-happen\/","title":{"rendered":"Foundry overcapacity \u2013 yes, it could happen"},"content":{"rendered":"

There will be an oversupply of semiconductor manufacturing capacity before the end of the year, persisting into 2012. That is the view of one of the latest analyses from Gartner Dataquest.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Figure 1. Percentage of new 300mm capacity by region. Source: Gartner<\/p><\/div>\n

At a time when much of the industry fears a capacity crunch\u2014due to a continuing economic recovery and the loss of Japanese fabs and raw materials after March\u2019s earthquake\u2014that may seem like a strange observation.<\/p>\n

However, Gartner has taken a more long term, global view. The reality is that as we reach the end of this year and into the next, much of the currently stalled Japanese output will have resumed or alternatives will have been identified. So, working through this shorter term challenge for the semiconductor supply chain, three factors emerge from the note.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. In terms of the addition of new capacity, Japan is a relatively modest player. The Asia\/Pacific region will account for almost 80% of all new 300mm wafer fabs by the end of this year, albeit falling to 70% by 2012. Nevertheless, the two drivers for expansion are South Korea (home to Samsung) and Taiwan (home to TSMC), as shown in Figure 1.<\/li>\n
  2. Competition in the foundry market is intensifying, following the consolidation of several formally discrete operations into GlobalFoundries as a rival to TSMC. As we move into 2012, GF\u2019s expansion program may remain more modest than that of the market leader, but the two companies are clearly ahead of the rest of their sector (see Figure 2).<\/li>\n
  3. While memories\u2014particularly NAND\u2014are also set for a rapid capacity boost (Figure 3), this will be more balanced by demand from segments such as smartphones and tablets.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So the challenge ahead would appear to lie largely with the foundries, both of which have something to prove.<\/p>\n

    \"\"

    Figure 2. New 300mm foundry capacity (wafer starts per month). Source: Gartner<\/p><\/div>\n

    TSMC continues to promote its \u2018Giga-fab\u2019 one-stop shop to clients, assuring them that it will always have space to meet their needs on the latest technologies. GF, for its part, wants to ramp ahead of the chasing foundry pack and also demonstrate that it has the depth to handle the largest runs as more than just a second source.<\/p>\n

    However, Gartner\u2019s research rightly warns, \u201cFoundries must be careful with their spending and capacity expansion plans by keeping a constant pulse on the market so as not to get caught up in a market share race and be left with excess capacity.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \"\"

    Figure 3. New 300mm memory capacity (wafer starts per month). Source: Gartner<\/p><\/div>\n

    At the same time, the foundries\u2019 customers in the fast-growing fabless market also need to stay keen. \u201cFabless companies,\u201d Gartner says, \u201cmust carefully negotiate terms with their foundry partners, especially with an impending foundry oversupply situation in late 2011, which should cause wafer prices to drop.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Current shortages could switch in key markets by the end of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":138,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[959,962],"coauthors":[51],"class_list":["post-2070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dfm-dfy","tag-capacity","tag-manufacturing","organization-gartner","organization-tsmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.techdesignforums.com\/practice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.techdesignforums.com\/practice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.techdesignforums.com\/practice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.techdesignforums.com\/practice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/138"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.techdesignforums.com\/practice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.techdesignforums.com\/practice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2070\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.techdesignforums.com\/practice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.techdesignforums.com\/practice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.techdesignforums.com\/practice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2070"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.techdesignforums.com\/practice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}