Semiconductor wafer-level manufacturing equipment revenues up 11% in 2016, says Gartner

Worldwide semiconductor wafer-level manufacturing equipment (WFE) revenues totaled US$37.4 billion in 2016, an 11.3% increase from 2015, according to final results by Gartner. The top-10 vendors accounted for 79% of the market, up 2% from 2015.

“Spending on 3D NAND and leading-edge logic process drove growth in the market in 2016,” said Takashi Ogawa, research VP at Gartner. “This spending was driven by momentum for high-end services in data centers and requirements for faster processors and high-volume memory for mobile devices.”

Applied Materials continued to lead the WFE market with 20.5% growth in 2016, Gartner indicated. The active investment in 3D device manufacturing provided significant momentum in Applied’s etch revenues, specifically in the conductor etch segment.

Screen Semiconductor Solutions experienced the highest growth in the WFE market in 2016 with 41.5%, Gartner said. This was due to a combination of the appreciation of the Japanese yen against the US dollar, which elevated dollar-based sales estimates and the demand in premium smartphone and data center servers for big data analysis that drove investment in 3D-NAND capacity and leading-edge technology in foundries.