SAN FRANCISCO—Global sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment totaled $43.53 billion in 2011, up 9 percent from 2010, according to the fab tool vendor group SEMI.
The global wafer processing equipment market segment increased 15 percent in 2011, the assembly and packaging segment decreased 14 percent and total test equipment sales decreased 9 percent, according to SEMI's Worldwide Semiconductor Equipment Market Statistics (SEMS) report. Other front-end equipment sales grew by 5 percent, according to the report.
North America's fab tool spending was $9.26 billion, surpassing Taiwan to regain the lead in semiconductor equipment spending by region,
SEMI (San Jose, Calif.) said. South Korea was the second-highest chip equipment spending region in 2011 for the second year in a row, with total spending of $8.66 billion, SEMI said. Taiwan, which saw its fab tool spending decrease by 24 percent in 2011, slipped to third in the world, SEMI said.
SEMI's Worldwide SEMS report, compiled from data submitted by members of SEMI and its Japanese counterpart, the Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan, provides a summary of the monthly billings and bookings figures for the global semiconductor equipment industry, SEMI said. . The report, which includes data for seven major semiconductor producing regions and 24 product categories, shows worldwide billings totaled $43.53 billion in 2011, compared to $39.93 billion in sales posted in 2010, SEMI said.
SEMI said recently it
expects 2012 fab tool spending to be roughly flat with 2011.