SAN JOSE -- Worldwide sales of new semiconductor manufacturing equipment will fall in 2012 from this year's record sales, SEMI forecast today.

The trade group's year-end consensus forecast predicts 4.7% growth in 2011, to $41.8 billion, followed by a drop of 10.8% in 2012.

Wafer processing equipment, the largest product segment by dollar value, is expected to increase 9.3%in 2011 to set a record at $32.7 billion, offsetting drops of 12.5% in assembly and packaging equipment ($3.4 billion) and 10.3% in semiconductor test equipment ($3.7 billion).

Growth is expected for four regions in 2011; Europe (up 66.9%), North America (53%), Japan (31.2%), and China (2.3%). Forecasted spending increases in 2011 will be particularly dramatic in North America and Europe owing to Intel’s and GlobalFoundries’ aggressive capex plans.

Additional projects driving the North American market include IBM Microelectronics' investments in Building 323, while Micron/IM Flash's Lehi and Manassas fabs and Samsung’s Austin’s fabs are all equipping this year. These investments will make the new equipment market in North America the largest with $8.8 billion, followed by Taiwan ($8.1 billion), South Korea ($8.0 billion), and Japan ($5.8 billion).  Taiwan, South Korea, and Rest of World experienced negative growth rates in 2011.

In 2012, only South Korea is expected to have positive growth (7.5%. In 2013, the market is expected to rebound for all regions except South Korea, due to high growth in 2012.

The following results are given in terms of market size in billions of U.S. dollars.

Record fab equipment spending in 2010 and 2011 will mean increased production capacity, SEMI said. The trade group notes that capacity increases are primarily from technological upgrades, not new fabs.

Japan still remains the largest chip manufacturing region in terms of capacity with about 23% of the worldwide total. The majority of that capacity is for logic at 37%, followed closely by memory at 34%.

By 2013, SEMI expects memory will dominate worldwide fab capacity at 38%, compared to 19% in 2000. This is primarily at the expense of MPU/Logic capacity. Foundry capacity is only expected to increase by 7% — to total 32% of global fab capacity, by 2013.

Semiconductor production is considered a leading indicator for printed circuit board and electronics assembly orders.

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