Gartner Inc., Stamford, Conn., reports that worldwide semiconductor wafer-level manufacturing equipment (WFE) revenue totaled $37.4 billion in 2016, an 11.3% increase from 2015. The top ten 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 vice president 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. The active investment in 3D device manufacturing provided significant momentum in Applied’s etch revenue, specifically in the conductor etch segment.
Screen Semiconductor Solutions experienced the highest growth in the market, with 41.5%. This was due to a combination of the appreciation of the Japanese yen against the U.S. 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.
