SEMI "1st Quarter Wafer Shipments Decrease by 5.4%"

Impact of Fab Utilization Rate Decline and Inventory Adjustment

Global silicon wafer shipments in the first quarter decreased by 5.4% compared to the previous quarter and by 13.2% compared to the same period last year.

On the 10th, the Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) announced that silicon wafer shipments in the first quarter reached 2.834 billion square inches.

Wafer appearance [Image source=Yonhap News]

Lee Chengwei, Chairman of SEMI's Silicon Manufacturing Group (SMG) and Vice President and Chief Auditor of GlobalWafers, explained, "Shipments decreased across all wafer diameters due to the continued decline in IC fab utilization rates and inventory adjustments in the first quarter."

However, he added, "The increasing adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) has accelerated the demand for advanced node logic products and memory semiconductors for data centers, leading some fabs to recover from the downward trend in utilization rates in the fourth quarter of last year."

Silicon wafers are disc-shaped substrates used to manufacture semiconductor chips, produced in various diameters ranging from 1 inch to 12 inches.

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