Q1 Wafer Shipments Decline... "Semiconductor Market Outlook Remains Positive"

SEMI Announces Q1 Wafer Statistics
Shipment Volume Declines Due to Inventory Adjustment

Optimism for Industry Recovery This Year
"Positive Outlook for Equipment and Materials Markets"

Since the second quarter of last year through the first quarter of this year, global shipments of silicon semiconductor wafers have been continuously declining. Although the semiconductor industry faced difficulties last year and signs of market recovery have appeared this year, it is still assessed that the effects of inventory adjustments remain. However, despite this situation, the overall outlook for the semiconductor market, including wafers, equipment, and materials, is positive.

On the 10th, the Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) announced that global silicon wafer shipments in the first quarter of this year reached 2.834 billion square inches. This represents a 5.4% decrease from the previous quarter and a 13.2% decrease compared to the same period last year.

Silicon wafers are disk-shaped substrates used to manufacture semiconductor chips, produced in various diameters ranging from 1 inch to 12 inches. The volume of wafer shipments can be used to gauge the overall chip production and business trends in the semiconductor industry.

Silicon wafer shipments have been declining since the second quarter of last year (3.331 billion square inches). After recording 3.01 billion square inches in the third quarter and 2.996 billion square inches in the fourth quarter of that year, shipments dropped to the 2.8 billion square inch range in the first quarter of this year.

The decline appears to have continued due to the poor semiconductor market conditions last year. Although recent AI-driven demand has increased for high-value memory semiconductor products and prices have risen, market optimism remains, but since demand across all applications has not fully recovered, wafer shipments in the first quarter inevitably decreased.

Li Qingwei, Chairman of SEMI’s Silicon Manufacturing Group (SMG) and Vice President and Chief Auditor of GlobalWafers, explained, "Due to the continued decline in integrated circuit (IC) fab utilization rates and inventory adjustments in the first quarter, shipments decreased across all wafer diameters." However, he added, "The increasing adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) has accelerated the rise in demand for advanced node logic products and memory for data centers, leading some fabs to exit the downward trend in utilization rates in the fourth quarter of last year."

The semiconductor industry expects that as the market recovery gains momentum this year and inventories decrease, once inventory adjustments are largely completed, fab utilization rates will rise and wafer shipments will increase. An industry insider said, "Although wafer shipments are currently undergoing inventory adjustments, the outlook is positive," adding, "The outlook for related markets such as semiconductor equipment and materials also appears favorable, so there is no need to be concerned about the first quarter figures."

In the memory market, a significant price increase is expected in the second quarter. Market research firm TrendForce forecasts that the fixed transaction prices (contract prices) for DRAM and NAND will rise by 13-18% and 15-20%, respectively, compared to the previous quarter. TrendForce stated, "We have revised upward the price increase rates for both DRAM and NAND, reflecting considerations related to supply and demand forecasts in the AI market."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.