Geographically, there are 34 in Japan (37% of the total), followed by 30 in North America (33%), Europe and Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APeJ), with 17 Accounting for 18%) and 11 (12%) fabs closed or moved to other uses.
Again in terms of closing hours, the world's largest wafer fab shut down globally in 2009 and 2010 was affected by the global economic downturn in the previous quarter, reaching 25 and 22 respectively, with 10 closed in 2012 and 2013 and two closed in 2015 Three fabs were discontinued in 2017. In addition, available information shows that three IC fabs will be closed (two 6-inch plants and one 8-inch plant) between 2018 and 2019. At 12 Inch, the German DRAM maker Qimonda, which was acquired by Texas Instruments (TI) due to bankruptcy in 2009, was the first to shut down a 12-inch fab, with Taiwan shutting down two in ProMOS in 2013 12-inch memory fab Renesas Electronics hands off its 12-inch logic IC factory to Sony in 2014 and Sony moves the plant to produce image sensors In 2017, Samsung Electronics Its Line 11 12-inch memory wafer fab in Yongin, South Korea, has been converted to produce image sensors.
Since the global economic downturn broke out in 2008 ~ 2009, IC manufacturers have been striving to reduce the production capacity of wafers up to 8 inches (inclusive) to large-scale wafer process development in order to raise the cost-effectiveness of wafer manufacturing. The wave of mergers and acquisitions and the move towards processes below 20 nanometers will also help semiconductor manufacturers eliminate inefficient fabs and, as more and more IC manufacturers are operating in paradigms, more are expected in the future The closure of fabs, which will help the development of foundry companies.IC Insights said that with the recent acquisition of the semiconductor industry, the frequency of new wafer fab and wafer manufacturing equipment costs soaring, coupled with more and more More IC makers are moving towards Fab-Lite or pure-IC design fabless manufacturers and more wafer fabs are expected to close, undoubtedly helping foundry foundries Foundry business in the future development.