According to TrendForce analysts, the revenue of contract chip manufacturers will grow by 16% by the end of the current year, which can be considered a good rebound after last year’s 14% decline. Next year, the growth of contract chip manufacturers’ revenue will exceed 20%, according to experts.
Image source: GlobalFoundries
However, it is difficult to talk about an improvement in the demand situation in consumer markets. This year, the equipment utilisation rate on the production lines for not the most advanced chips has dropped below 80%, which cannot be considered an optimal level from an economic point of view. Only the production lines for chips using process technologies from 5 to 3 nm inclusive were fully utilised, and this situation will continue next year, which cannot be guaranteed for the consumer market.
As noted in the TrendForce report, the automotive electronics and industrial automation markets will begin to recover after inventory adjustments in the current half of the year, and this process will continue in 2025. The boom in artificial intelligence systems is helping to increase the number of silicon wafers processed by the industry. This will largely contribute to the fact that contract chip makers’ revenue will grow by 20% next year. If we exclude TSMC, which has the leading market share, from this sample, the growth will be limited to 12%, but even in this case it will be higher than the previous year’s level.
Image source: TrendForce
Next year, the 3-nm process technology will become the main one for the production of advanced computing components, including central processors for PCs and smartphones, but accelerator chips will remain on the 5-nm and 4-nm processes. By the second half of the year, demand for 6-nm and 7-nm chips used in smartphones for work in wireless communication networks will begin to grow. According to TrendForce forecast, in 2025, the range of process technologies from 7 to 3 nm will generate up to 45% of the revenue of contract chip manufacturers around the world.
High demand for chip packaging services using the 2.5D layout class has led to a continuing shortage throughout the current and previous years. TSMC, Samsung and Intel are trying to expand their core production capacities. Revenue from providing such services will grow by more than 120% by the end of 2025. True, for now they will form no more than 5% of the revenue of contract manufacturers, but this share will steadily grow.
TrendForce experts hope that the recovery of demand in the consumer market will allow contract manufacturers to increase the utilisation rate of silicon wafer processing lines using mature process technologies to over 70% by the end of 2025, although it currently does not exceed 60% in most cases. New enterprises using process technologies in the range from 28 to 55 nm will also be commissioned. Prices for services for the production of chips of this class may decrease as a result of the emergence of new capacities. Contract market participants will have to deal with high costs for the implementation of advanced equipment and macroeconomic uncertainty.
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Source: 3dnews.ru
