Fab utilization up at 76% in Q1 as capacity slips slightly, says SIA
By J. Robert Lineback
Semiconductor Business News
(05/23/02 08:58 a.m. EST)
SAN JOSE -- Worldwide wafer fab capacity utilization climbed to 76.3% in the first quarter of 2002 from 65.9% in Q4 of 2001 as chip makers continued to mothball mostly 0.25-micron manufacturing lines at the start of this year, said a new report released by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) here.
The new quarterly Semiconductor International Capacity Statistics (SICAS) report said the industry's IC fabs were equipped to fabricate 1.27 million eight-inch equivalent wafers per week in the first quarter vs. 1.28 million in the final quarter of 2001.
The SICAS report underscores the industry's growng shortage of capacity for leading-edge IC processes. Capacity utilization of advanced processes with feature sizes below 0.2-micron (including the 0.18- and 0.13-micron technology nodes) grew to 90% in the first quarter from 83.5% in Q4, the report said. A year earlier in the first quarter of 2001, those advanced fab lines were operating at only 81% capacity.
The IC industry has been steadily decreasing its installed based of wafer fab capacity since the third quarter of 2001, when plants were tooled up to process 1.32 million eight-inch equivalent wafers per week, according to the report. The first-quarter 2002 installed IC fab capacity level was 4.1% lower than it was in Q3 last year.
But the new SICAS report also shows IC fab capacity utilization growing for the second quarter in a row in Q1. Wafer fab capacity utilization rose from 64.2% in the third quarter of 2001--the low-point in last year's industry downturn--to 65.9% in the fourth quarter (see March 19 story).
The new report comes one week after analysts at VLSI Research Inc. in San Jose predicted that fab utilization would reach 82.4% in May, up from 80.2% in April and the low monthly level of 69% last December. VLSI Research said the 80% line is historically important because this point is when most chip makers start to upgrade existing facilities "fairly aggressively" (see May 17 story).
The SICAS report, produced by an organization based in Vessem, the Netherlands, does not project fab utilization rates or capacity levels. However, the report does break down the capacity into technology nodes and process types.
The report said worldwide MOS integrated circuit fab capacity was at 1.157 million eight-inch equivalent wafers per week in Q1 vs. 1.169 million in Q4 of 2001--a 1% drop. Bipolar IC fab capacity increased to 289,900 five-inch equivalent wafers in the first quarter from 281,500 in Q4 of 2001.
First-quarter IC fab capacity for leading-edge processes--with minimum feature sizes below 0.2 micron--increased 19.3% to 388,600 eight-inch equivalent wafers per week compared to 325,80 in Q4, the new report said. The increase in 0.2-micron and below capacity was 75% higher than 221,800 wafer per week in Q1 of 2001.
The hardest hit segment for reduction of IC fabrication capacity was the 0.3-micron to 0.2-micron segment (mostly 0.25-micron technologies). Fab capacity in this segment dropped 28.4% to 168,000 eight-inch wafer starts per week in the first quarter compared to 234,700 wafers in Q4. Compared to Q1 last year, this segment dropped 41.8% from 288,800 wafers per week in the period last year.
However, capacity decreases did not occur in other older MOS integrated circuit technologies. For example, fab capacity for 0.4-micron to 0.3-micron processes (mostly in the 0.35-micron node) grew to 194,800 wafers per week in Q1 vs. 184,900 in Q4 and 177,000 in the first quarter last year, according to the SICAS report. |
