Taipei, Dec. 30 (CNA) Taiwan's pure play wafer foundry industry is expected to benefit from strong demand for advanced processes, and sales in 2024 are forecast to grow 15 percent from this year, according to Digitimes Research.
In a research report, the Taipei-based tech sector analytical company said Taiwan's pure wafer foundry firms are expected to post a record high of more than US$90 billion in revenue in 2024, up from 15 percent a year earlier.
Eric Chen (陳澤嘉), an analyst with Digitimes Research, said in the report that due to solid demand for advanced 3 nanometer, 4nm and 5nm processes, at a time of growing shipments of smartphones, PCs and servers, sales in the industry are expected to stage a rebound from 2023, when sales in the industry are expected to fall 12 percent from a year earlier amid inventory adjustments.
However, sales for the first quarter of next year are expected to fall 6.5 percent from a quarter earlier due to traditional slow season effects, Chen said.
For 2023, Digitimes Research said revenue generated by the local pure play wafer foundry industry is expected to reach US$78.7 billion, down 12 percent from a year earlier, but the anticipated year-on-year decline is smaller than the previous forecast of a 13 percent fall as shipments of the 3nm, 4nm and 5nm processes for 5G smartphone and high-performance computing device production in the second half of this year beat the earlier expectations.
However, Chen said demand for chips made of mature processes remained weak in the second half of this year with the average capacity utilization ratio in the industry expected to hit only 70 percent.
In an investor conference held in mid-October, C.C. Wei (魏哲家), CEO of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), said solid demand for the 3nm process, the latest technology for which the company started commercial production at the end of last year, is offsetting the impact of inventory adjustments in the global semiconductor sector this year.
Wei said growing demand for the 3nm process is expected to continue into 2024, meaning TSMC is likely to see healthy growth momentum next year.
