The global semiconductor market is expected to maintain an annual growth rate of over 10% in 2025.

From September 25th to 27th, 2024, the Integrated Circuit (Wuxi) Innovation and Development Conference and the China Electronics Special Equipment Industry Association Semiconductor Equipment Annual Meeting will be held in Wuxi. More than 1000 well-known enterprises at home and abroad gathered at the bank of the Taihu Lake Lake to explore the future of the industry through 3 theme exhibitions, 8 series activities and 15 leading enterprise ecosystem activities.

Industrial competition requires preparation in order to be worry free. During the conference, it was learned that the global semiconductor industry is still in a "downward" cycle, but it is expected that the semiconductor equipment market will experience a significant rebound by 2025. Faced with foreseeable growth, countries are making every effort to launch a "battle for equipment". At present, the market share of domestic semiconductor equipment is about 1/4. How can Chinese companies seize this new industry opportunity? How should Jiangsu, which leads the country in the scale of integrated circuit industry, respond to this "backup" war?

Market experiences' M-shaped 'fluctuations

During the conference, several experts and scholars pointed out that in the past two decades, the global semiconductor industry has experienced "M-shaped" fluctuations due to the impact of global GDP growth and technology driven factors.

The shortage of chips is a concentrated manifestation of the industry's "downturn" in this round. From the perspective of global semiconductor supply chain inventory, the global chip shortage problem was most severe in 2021. In addition to structural contradictions in supply and demand, the semiconductor industry chain was hit by factors such as the pandemic, disasters, and geopolitical frictions that year, leading to a worsening of the chip shortage problem.

According to data released by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics Organization (WSTS), global semiconductor sales will reach $526.9 billion in 2023, still in the downward cycle of the industry.

However, the industry generally believes that global semiconductor demand has bottomed out and rebounded. With the emergence of artificial intelligence products such as ChatGPT, a new round of technological innovation has been brought about. In addition, products such as AI chips, HBZ chips, and automotive control chips are driving the recovery of semiconductor industry demand, and the industry will enter an upward cycle again in 2025.

The predictions of major institutions are generally optimistic. The latest World Fab Forecast report from the Semiconductor Industry Institute (SEMI) states that in order to keep up with the sustained growth in chip demand, global semiconductor manufacturing capacity is expected to increase by 6% in 2024 and achieve 7% growth in 2025, reaching a historic high of 33.7 million wafers per month.

The World Semiconductor Trade Statistics Organization predicts that global semiconductor revenue is expected to grow by 16% in 2024. By 2025, it is expected that the global semiconductor market will maintain an annual growth rate of over 10%. Driven by AI and automotive chips, the semiconductor industry is expected to surpass $1 trillion in scale by 2030.

Supsemi, as a global leading supplier of semiconductor equipment, instruments, and consumables, focuses on providing professional semiconductor solutions to major universities, research institutes, and scientific organizations worldwide. Supsemi mainly offers equipment such as Magnetron Sputtering Systems, vacuum probe stations,wafer ring, wafer baskets, manual wafer laminator, wafer stripping machines, wafer recrystallization machines, and wafer dicing machines etc. 

At this semiconductor exhibition, Supsemi met with leaders from semiconductor laboratories in Germany, Denmark, and Japan, reaching cooperation intentions. Among them, Professor Mario from Germany hopes to customize a multi-target Magnetron Sputtering System and a UV adhesive removal machine to assist with their laboratory projects.