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South Korea’s Chip Manufacturing Spending Surpasses China’s in 2024


According to EENews, according to industry agency SEMI, South Korea will surpass China in 2024, ranking second in chip manufacturing equipment spending. SEMI said that Taiwan is expected to remain the top ranked region, but US sanctions on exports of cutting-edge chip manufacturing equipment to China are expected to flatten China’s spending, while South Korea is expected to see a surge in spending, returning to second place.
Overall, global wafer factory equipment expenditures for front-end facilities are expected to decline by 22% to $76 billion year-on-year in 2023, and then increase by 21% to $92 billion year-on-year in 2024.


Expenditure on front-end wafer plant equipment from 2020 to 2024
The decline in 2023 was due to weak chip demand and high chip inventory levels for consumer electronics and smartphones. SEMI stated that as the chip surplus is corrected in 2023, demand is expected to increase, driving up spending in 2024, especially in the high-performance computing (HPC) and automotive sectors.


Ranking of countries/regions for front-end wafer factory equipment expenditure in 2024
According to SEMI’s global manufacturer forecast report, following a 7.2% growth in 2022, the global semiconductor industry’s capacity will increase by 4.8% in 2023. Capacity is expected to continue to grow by 5.6% in 2024.
In 2023, the decrease in expenses of the foundry will be lower than the overall average, but the increase in 2024 will be reduced. It is expected that the industrial expenditure will reach 43.4 billion US dollars in 2023, a year-on-year decrease of 12.1%. By 2024, expenditures will reach $48.8 billion, an increase of 12.4%. Despite a year-on-year decrease of 44.4% to $17.1 billion, memory is expected to rank second in global spending by 2023, and investment will increase to $28.2 billion in 2024.
Unlike other market segments, driven by the steady growth of the automotive market, simulation and power generation will steadily expand, with expenditures expected to increase by 1.3% to $9.7 billion in 2023. Investment in this sector is expected to remain stable next year.