Barron`s.com reported on the 12th that Keybanc analyst Weston Twigg published a research report indicating that chip makers’ capital spending on equipment this year is expected to grow by 8%, which is higher than the 5% he previously estimated, and demand has a chance to increase by 10%. In the above, the demand for logic IC devices is relatively stable. Although foundries are somewhat weak in the first half of the year, they should improve in the second half of the year.
Twigg said that Samsung seems to be actively expanding its DRAM production capacity. It is estimated that the demand for memory will be stronger than that estimated by the equipment makers before the end of the previous quarter. DRAM expansion and 3D NAND production capacity will continue to increase, and it is hoped that the capital expenditures of chip manufacturers will increase all the way to the end of this year. Although Samsung has basically stopped expanding its production of OLEDs and significantly reduced the utilization of existing OLED production capacity, Applied Materials has a relatively low exposure to this factor and its OLED related revenue accounts for only 7% of the total.
Applied materials rose 2.69% to $56.43 on the 12th, returned to the 60-day moving average, and hit a close on March 26th. Lam Research Corp., a manufacturer of semiconductor etching machines, rose 2.57%. Received US$206.02, which was the highest since March 26. The wafer testing equipment manufacturer KLA-Tencor Corporation also rose 2.33% to US$109.12.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (2330), Samsung’s interest in advanced process competitions will also be very beneficial to semiconductor equipment manufacturers.
The European Department of Foreign Investment Research released on April 9 pointed out that recent rumours suggest that TSMC may postpone the delivery of orders for EUV lithography equipment. However, according to field surveys, the demand outlook for EUV has not diminished. On the contrary, there are indications of an increase in temperature. It is estimated that ASML Holding NV, the leading semiconductor equipment manufacturer in Europe, will know that the EUV production capacity for (2019) should be snatched up as scheduled.
The report pointed out that TSMC has already placed orders of nearly US$1 billion on ASML and Lasertec, the Japanese semiconductor equipment manufacturer, on April 2. It shows that the number of equipment ordered in the first quarter should be 6-8. Samsung is the most active attitude towards EUV. According to the survey, Samsung may import at least part of its 1 y nm DRAM (~1 layer) capacity into EUV, and the time for mass production of DRAM will be even earlier than that of 7nm foundry/logic chips. , because Samsung intends to use a lower risk DRAM trial production, so that in the future a lot of 7-nanometer process import EUV.