Semiconductor Equipment Is in Short Supply

Significantly longer turnaround times for semiconductor equipment

At the moment, the global chip shortage corresponds to the news of semiconductor equipment delivery time extensions are also on the rise.

According to industry practitioners, the semiconductor test ATE equipment delivery time is now generally more than 6 months, the more sought-after test equipment orders have been scheduled for 2024. Not only the ATE equipment, but the delivery time of the probe table is also generally more than 12 months. This is mainly due to the mainstream machines are produced in Japan, its conservative and robust production methods, resulting in its production being far from keeping up with market demand.

Semiconductor test equipment manufacturer Edelman test Taiwan chairman and general manager, Wu Wankun said recently, by the strong demand for logic chips, Edelman this year, chip automation testing equipment hit the best ever to receive orders. But also by the chip and part of the shortage of raw materials, the equipment delivery period lengthened to at least six months or more. He also stressed that the impact of rising costs, the company does not rule out the new year to raise the price of test equipment.

The semiconductor equipment leading application materials are also said by the shortage of parts and other issues. According to the report, this quarter, the application of materials a total increase of $1.3 billion, the total backlog reached a huge $ 8 billion. This also indicates that namely, the company is close to selling out its capacity in 2022.

According to a report in the Securities Times, in the compound semiconductor sector, the upstream key MOCVD equipment is affected by the tight supply of parts and delivery lead time is extended again, with the latest need to about 10 months.

It can be said that almost all of the equipment delivery time has been extended. The battle for semiconductor equipment has long been fought, customers have placed orders in advance, the order backlog has been the industry norm. Last year, basically all semiconductor equipment suppliers have made a lot of money. For example, in 2021, ASML shipped 286 lithography machines, creating revenue of 18.6 billion euros, of which only the EUV lithography machine reached 42 units. Other manufacturers can specifically see the "earn to the hands of the semiconductor equipment manufacturers". According to SEMI forecast, in 2021 and 2022 global semiconductor equipment sales will reach 95.3 and 101.3 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 34.1% and 6.3% year-on-year.

Not only grab new equipment, used equipment is even more “fragrant”

At the moment, both foundries and IDM manufacturers, and even some Fabless companies are expanding production, building factories, and maturing nodes in a major direction. But if you want to expand the production capacity of old chips, these buyers will have to face a difficult choice: either to enter the long waiting cycle for new equipment, the major equipment manufacturers have no signs of shortening the delivery time; or to buy old used equipment, but used equipment is now also in short supply.

In fact, demand for both new and used equipment for manufacturing chips has been growing since 2016. The extended delivery period for new equipment has directly pushed up the price and volume of used equipment, and the refurbished delivery price of some used equipment has approached or even exceeded that of new machines. The current market of used semiconductor equipment trading can be described as "quantity and price increase". For example, the Canon FPA3000i4, a 1995 lithography machine used to etch circuits on chips, was valued at $100,000 in October 2014 but has now risen to $1.7 million.

Last year's automotive chip shortage made us realize that most of the chips in the products we use are made with older manufacturing techniques, with many being produced on used equipment. Bruce Kim, CEO of SurplusGLOBAL, has stated that the company has recycled 40,000 tools in the last 20 years.

It is not only such as applied materials, KLA and other large manufacturers of semiconductor equipment last year to make money hand over fist. According to Chen Zhen, general manager of SurplusGLOBAL China, the world's leading used semiconductor equipment vendor, told Semiconductor Industry Insight, "SurplusGLOBAL is close to doubling its global sales in 2021 compared to 2020, and doubling its sales in China. The reason for such a large volume of used semiconductor equipment, the advantage is mainly reflected in the short delivery time above."

In recent years, domestic semiconductor equipment manufacturers have achieved a rapid breakthrough in the level of technology, and domestic substitution is also accelerating. However, the overall view of domestic semiconductor equipment and the international are facing a big gap, domestic equipment manufacturers should seize the opportunity of localization, to "specialize" the direction of development, but also to internationalization, in order to achieve more long-term development.

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