According to the latest forecast from IC Insights, global semiconductor companies will begin to increase production lines next year, and the new semiconductor production capacity will reach a record high in 2021.

According to forecasts, next year, 10 production lines for 300 mm silicon wafers will be added worldwide. Based on this forecast, by 2024, the average annual growth rate of semiconductor production capacity will be 5.9%. Compared with the average annual increase rate (5.1%) of semiconductor production capacity in the past 5 years (2014 ~ 2019), the growth rate slightly increased.

IC Insights pointed out that in order to prevent the shortage of memory chips from happening again in 2017 and 2018, memory semiconductor companies began to plan to increase production lines. However, due to the poor industrial conditions this year, the global semiconductor equipment operating rate was only 86%, which was much lower than 94% last year, and the companies delayed the plan. Although semiconductor companies have postponed the expansion plan, it is generally believed that some additional production lines will be completed in 2020 and 2021.

According to IC Insights' analysis, based on 200mm silicon wafers, next year's production capacity will add 17.9 million chips. If the production line expansion plan goes smoothly, the new capacity is expected to reach 20.8 million in 2021.