Taiwan's foundry industry suffered a minor sequential drop in overall revenues, better than DIGITIMES Research had originally anticipated thanks to short-term orders for electronics and HPCs.
Despite the sanctions from the US, the Chinese government and semiconductor firms continued to step up their effort in promoting independent development of China's semiconductor industry.
Global top-3 memory makers are expected to see rising revenues from the memory business in the first quarter of 2024 with HBM products to be the key growth drivers.
The global semiconductor market was in bad shape in 2023 with DIGITIMES Research having estimated the global semiconductor revenue at US$523 billion for 2023, an 8.9% decrease from a year ago.
In response to the continuous growth in AI demand, memory device makers SK Hynix, Samsung Electronics, and Micron Technology plan to mass-produce high bandwidth memory 3E (HBM3E) products in 2024
The US government released multiple new measures directed at China's semiconductor industry, including the expansion of the curbs on high-performance chip and advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment (SME) exports in October 2023.
DIGITIMES Research projects that the global foundry revenue will grow at a CAGR of 11.3% from 2023 through 2028, driven by demand from 5G and EV applications.
Taiwan's wafer foundry industry is set to generate a total of only US$77.9 billion in revenue in 2023, falling 13% from a year ago, but will see the amount to rise in 2024.
The Japanese government on May 23 announced to impose export restrictions on 23 items of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, effective July 23. Although the list includes various equipment, Japan is more likely to control the export of photolithography or thin film deposition equipment for advanced processes.
The four leading foundries in Taiwan - Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), United Microelectronics (UMC), Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing (PSMC) and Vanguard International Semiconductor (VIS) - together generated a total of US$89.4 billion in revenues in 2022, soaring 31% from a year ago. However, they still experienced the first on-quarter revenue decline since the COVID-19 pandemic in fourth-quarter 2022.
