Global Wafer Inspection Equipment Market 2019-2023

Global Wafer Inspection Equipment Market 2019-2023

About this market

The size of wafers has increased from 23 mm to 300 mm in the last forty years. The large surface area provided by large diameter wafers allows the manufacturing of high number of chips at low manufacturing costs. A reduction of 30% in manufacturing costs and 20%-50% in device costs can be achieved by increasing wafer size. Moreover, IC production can be optimized in foundries by making changes to the 300 mm wafer fabs. Memory ICs built on 300 mm wafers are being developed by some leading memory manufacturers such as SAMSUNG, Micron Technology, and SK HYNIX. Thus, the increasing focus on large diameter wafer size is identified as a key trend that will fuel the growth of wafer inspection equipment market during the forecast period. Technavio’s analysts have predicted that the wafer inspection equipment market will register a CAGR of over 6% by 2023.

Market Overview

Growing demand for IoT devices

The development in telecommunication standards such as 3G/4G/5G and wired communication standards have led to increased adoption of IoT devices. IoT devices can collect, record, and transmit data between connected devices on a real-time basis without the need for human interaction. The penetration of IoT devices is expected to increase during the forecast period. This will result in increasing demand for semiconductor devices, which in turn will boost the growth of wafer inspection equipment market.

Cyclic nature of the semiconductor industry

The semiconductor industry is highly volatile due to its cyclic nature. Excess production capacity, rapid price erosion of ICs, and obsolete products affects the growth of the semiconductor industry. The fluctuations in the market can lead to high inventory levels during low demand and low inventory levels during high demand. This cyclic nature of the semiconductor industry drastically impacts the demand for wafer inspection equipment and hampers market growth.

For the detailed list of factors that will drive and challenge the growth of the wafer inspection equipment market during 2019-2023, view our report.

Competitive Landscape

The market appears to be concentrated and with the presence of few companies including Applied Materials, and ASML the competitive environment is less intense. Factors such as the increasing demand for IoT devices, will provide considerable growth opportunities to wafer inspection equipment manufacturers. Applied Materials, ASML, Hitachi High-Technologies, KLA-Tencor, and Rudolph Technologies are some of the major companies covered in this report.