GSA releases study on IC foundry market growth, capacity trends, and wafer and mask set pricing

USA: GSA is pleased to announce the release of the fourth edition of The IC Foundry Almanac, a joint effort between GSA and IC Insights. The Almanac is a concise annual reference book for foundry segment analysis, five-year forecasts, wafer and mask set pricing information, and foundry company profile data.

The partnership combines IC Insights’ analysis of market growth and capacity trends with GSA’s analysis of wafer and mask set pricing data and extensive database of IC foundry service provider profiles.

Key findings from The 2012 IC Foundry Almanac include:
* Growth of total IC foundry sales (by pure-play wafer foundries and IDMs) slowed in 2011, with dollar volumes rising by an estimated 6 percent to a new record high of $32.1 billion following a strong recovery surge of 40 percent in 2010.

* Foundry demand is expected to continue growing in 2012 and 2013 with total sales increasing 11 percent and 6 percent, respectively.

* Pure-play foundry wafer process capacity available from small-to-medium suppliers outside the “Big 4” (i.e., TSMC, UMC, GlobalFoundries, and SMIC) represented about 25 percent of the installed pure-play capacity in 2011 compared to 28 percent in 2008.

* Data from GSA’s Q3 2011 Wafer Fabrication Pricing Survey reveals that average and median pricing for 150mm, 200mm and 300mm production CMOS wafers decreased quarter-over-quarter (QoQ).