In 2021, the semiconductor equipment market will still maintain high growth and opportunities in the future

Semiconductor equipment is an important support for the whole semiconductor industry. The rapid development of the semiconductor industry continues to promote the expansion of the scale of the semiconductor equipment market. The main investment of the wafer factory will be used to purchase the key equipment required for the production of various semiconductor products, such as lithography equipment, etching equipment, film deposition equipment, quality control equipment, cleaning equipment, chemical grinding CMP equipment, ion implantation equipment, etc. these semiconductor equipment are used in the core processes of semiconductor manufacturing, including lithography, etching, film growth, quality control, cleaning, polishing, ion implantation, etc. Semiconductor equipment is in the key position upstream of the semiconductor industry chain. Advanced semiconductor equipment plays a vital role in promoting advanced manufacturing processes. There are many kinds of semiconductor equipment, which involve a wide range of technology, and require long-term R & D investment to achieve technological breakthroughs. Its advanced nature directly affects the quality and efficiency of downstream customers. Therefore, before the large-scale production, it needs strict testing and customer certification, and the verifying barrier of equipment is high. At the same time, in order to better match the process improvement of downstream customers, the technology update and product iteration speed of semiconductor equipment need to be synchronized or even ahead of it.

1. Market scale analysis and forecast of semiconductor equipment industry at home and abroad

(1) Rapid growth of market scale

In recent years, the capacity expansion of the global semiconductor industry has continued, the demand for semiconductor equipment has increased steadily, and the growth rate of global semiconductor equipment sales is obvious. In 2020, the global sales of semiconductor equipment was US $71.2 billion, with a year-on-year increase of 19.1%. It is expected that the semiconductor equipment market will still maintain high growth in 2021.

Relevant report: special report on investment prospects of domestic and foreign semiconductor equipment industry from 2022 to 2027 by Beijing Puhua Youce Information Consulting Co., Ltd

Scale and growth of global semiconductor equipment market from 2016 to 2020

Source: Puhua Youce

Downstream demand drives the overall development of the semiconductor equipment market. The global industrial transfer makes the semiconductor equipment market show significant regional differences. After the two industrial transfer from the United States to Japan, Japan to Korea and China Taiwan, the global semiconductor industry is now accelerating to the Chinese mainland. In 2020, sales of semiconductor equipment in Chinese mainland were 18 billion 720 million US dollars, up 39.2% from the same period last year. Chinese mainland semiconductor equipment is the first in the world, and its market share is expanding rapidly.

At present, the global semiconductor equipment market is in an oligopoly situation. The technology of the United States and Japan is leading in the market. International well-known semiconductor equipment enterprises represented by applied materials, asmai, RAM research, Tokyo electronics and Kelei semiconductor occupy the main share of the global market. In 2020, the top ten semiconductor equipment manufacturers in the world are all overseas enterprises, with a total market share of 76.6%.

(2) Chinese mainland has become the world's largest semiconductor equipment market.

As the largest integrated circuit production and consumption market in the world, the scale of IC industry in Chinese mainland is expanding. Chinese mainland semiconductor equipment market scale increased significantly, the market size in 2018 was 13 billion 110 million US dollars, an increase of 59.3% over the same period last year. In 2019, the size of the global semiconductor equipment market was reduced, and the Chinese mainland still grew 2.6% year-on-year. In 2020, the semiconductor equipment market in mainland China also maintained a fast growth trend, with sales of $18 billion 720 million, up 39.2% over the same period last year. Chinese mainland's first semiconductor equipment market was the first time to surpass Taiwan, China. The scale growth of China's semiconductor equipment market benefits from the vigorous development of China's semiconductor industry and the continuous policy support of the state for the semiconductor industry in recent years. Downstream Fabs in the industry have successfully achieved mass production at key process nodes, and many domestic leading semiconductor manufacturing enterprises have entered the period of capacity expansion, which has provided the source power for the improvement of technical capacity and the expansion of industrial scale of domestic semiconductor equipment enterprises.

The improvement of the overall localization rate of China's semiconductor equipment industry is still in its infancy. At present, the semiconductor equipment used by domestic semiconductor manufacturers still mainly depends on imports. According to the statistics of China Electronic Special Equipment Industry Association, in 2020, 25449 sets of semiconductor equipment were imported, with a total import volume of US $10.9 billion, a year-on-year increase of 31.8% and 30.3% respectively.

In recent years, due to the tension of global supply chain and international trade friction, the domestic semiconductor industry has become more and more aware of the importance of semiconductor equipment localization, and the coordinated development of upstream and downstream of the industrial chain has become closer. With the advantages of location, customized services and supply stability, the market share of domestic semiconductor equipment manufacturers is expected to increase significantly in the future.

2. Industry development trend and opportunities

(1) The demand for semiconductor applications and consumer markets has increased steadily. The continuous development of new application markets such as the Internet of things, 5g communication and automotive electronics has generated huge demand for semiconductor products, promoting the semiconductor industry to enter a new round of development cycle. Globally, the capacity expansion of wafer factories continues, and the continuous development of downstream demand provides opportunities for the expansion and upgrading of semiconductor equipment manufacturing industry.

(2) The shift of focus of semiconductor industry provides great opportunities for local equipment manufacturers

With its huge market capacity and years of development, China has become the world's largest semiconductor consumer and producer. The broad downstream market and the constantly improving upstream and downstream industry chain are driving the global capacity center to Chinese mainland. In the 2017-2020 year, 26 of the 62 new wafer plants that were newly put into operation from the Chinese mainland. According to semi's prediction, global semiconductor manufacturers will start building 19 new wafer factories by the end of 2021 and start building 10 more in 2022; Chinese mainland and Taiwan China will be leading in the construction of new wafer fabs, each with 8 new fabs.

The continuous expansion of the scale of the semiconductor industry will bring great development opportunities for domestic equipment manufacturers. Domestic equipment will be accelerated to be imported into mainland wafer factories. Therefore, domestic semiconductor equipment will usher in a period of rapid development.

(3) National policies strongly support the improvement of equipment localization

As a basic, key and strategic industry in the national economy, integrated circuit industry is one of the basic and core industries of modern information industry. It is an important symbol to measure the degree of modernization and comprehensive national strength of a country or region. In recent years, the tension of global supply chain and international trade friction have had a significant impact on the development of domestic integrated circuit industry. All sectors of domestic society pay more and more attention to the localization of semiconductor equipment.

The 13th five year plan has repeatedly mentioned the importance of the development of the integrated circuit industry, emphasizing the need to make up for the shortcomings of core technologies, accelerate the transformation of scientific and technological innovation achievements into real productivity, and overcome key core technologies such as integrated circuit equipment. Integrated circuit equipment is regarded as the key core technology in the plan, and "large scale integrated circuit manufacturing equipment and complete set of technology" is listed as a national key science and technology special project. The 14th five year plan further emphasizes the significance of developing the integrated circuit industry to strengthen the national strategic scientific and technological force. As an important support of the whole semiconductor industry, semiconductor equipment industry is the core link in the process of semiconductor industrialization. At present, the products of foreign leading enterprises still occupy most of the global semiconductor equipment market, but local enterprises have made breakthroughs in some segments, and there is a huge space for localization in the future.