Gartner sees 2002 semi equipment market down 30%
By Semiconductor Business News
Apr 8, 2003 (8:12 AM)
URL: siliconstrategies.com
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- The worldwide market for semiconductor manufacturing equipment was $18.5 billion in 2002, a decline of 30.4 percent from 2001, according to Gartner Inc., a market research organization that is better known in the semiconductor area through its Dataquest subsidiary.
The announcement makes a distinction between semiconductor manufacturing equipment excluding test equipment and the wafer fab equipment a market, a market which Gartner said yesterday was worth $16.5 billion in 2002 (see April 7 story).
“The dire outcome of 2002 was the result of slower-than-anticipated end-user demand and an increasing level of macroeconomic uncertainty that hit semiconductor vendors rapidly in the second half of 2002," said Klaus-Dieter Rinnen, vice president for Gartner's semiconductor research group, in a statement. "Consequently, spending plans were adjusted downward, projects were delayed or shelved, and equipment orders were either pushed out or cancelled."
The market was kinder to companies in hot technology segments such as lithography and photomask, copper interconnect, factory automation, contact probe, flip chip, and interconnect bonding in general. Electrochemical deposition (ECD) and low-density plasma deposition fared better than most segments, only declining 11.2 percent and 8.1 percent, respectively, Gartner said.
"Some small emerging technologies such as atomic layer deposition (ALD), which grew 53.2 percent, and silicon germanium epitaxy, which increased 55 percent, grew above the marketplace as these new technologies are beginning to emerge from R&D and move into production," Rinnen said.
With the emergence of advanced transistors and silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology high-current implanter sales declined 22 percent year over year. High-voltage implant, on the strength of the memory market, only declined 19.3 percent.
"Segments associated with factory automation also saw above-market growth as 300-mm fabs and advanced automation at leading-edge fabs continued to implement advanced automation technology, resulting in only a 26 percent decline in this segment," Rinnen said.
The market continues to be led by the wafer fab equipment market. Worldwide wafer fab equipment sales totaled $16.53 billion, which represented 89.1 percent of all semiconductor manufacturing equipment sales in 2002. Wafer fab equipment sales declined 31.6 percent in 2002, Gartner said.
Packaging and assembly equipment sales totaled $2.34 billion in 2002, a 21.7 percent decline from 2001 sales, the market watcher said. Wire bonders continued to be the largest equipment segment for semiconductor packaging, accounting for almost 16 percent of the identified packaging equipment market. |
