Global Semiconductor Spending Will Exceed Us $100 Billion For The First Time.

IC Insights forecasts that semiconductor capital spending will rise to $102 billion this year, the first time the industry has spent more than $100 billion a year. This year's expenditure level of US $102 billion increased by 9% compared with us $93 billion 300 million in 2017, an increase of 38% over 2016. Memory IC is expected to account for 53% of semiconductor spending in 2018, with flash memory accounting for the largest share of capital expenditure, while DRAM capital expenditure will continue to grow at the highest rate this year.

As shown, more than half of the industry's capital expenditure is expected to be spent on memory, particularly DRAM and flash production, including upgrading existing wafer plants and new manufacturing facilities. On the whole, memory is expected to account for 53% of semiconductor capital expenditure this year, reaching US $54 billion. The proportion of capital expenditure on memory devices has increased dramatically in six years, almost doubling from 27% in 2013 ($14.7 billion), with a compound annual growth rate of 30% from 2013 to 2018.

DRAM / SRAM expenditure is expected to increase the most in terms of specific product categories, but expenditure on flash products is expected to account for the largest share of this year, as shown below. Capital expenditure in the DRAM / SRAM market is expected to grow by 41% again in 2018 after a strong 82% growth in 2017, while flash memory expenditure will grow by 13% again this year after a 91% growth in 2017.