micronet news (text/holly), according to Business Korea, although people are worried that semiconductor demand may decline due to the impact of the epidemic, major manufacturers such as Intel, TSMC, and Samsung will increase investment in equipment.
It is reported that Intel, a leader in the server and PC CPU industries, has proposed investing US$17 billion in equipment in 2020. In addition, Intel has been steadily increasing investment in facilities in recent years, investing US$15.2 billion in 2018 and US$16 billion in 2019. Its results are also significant, accounting for more than 90% of the server CPU market and more than 80% of PC CPUs. market.
TSMC, a major wafer foundry, stated at its recent financial report conference that it will invest US$15 billion to US$16 billion in equipment construction this year. In 2018, TSMC invested US$10.5 billion, a figure that increased to US$14.8 billion in 2019.
In addition, TSMC is planning to expand the gap with Samsung Electronics, the second largest foundry, by actively acquiring EUV equipment. According to market research company TrendForce, TSMC’s chip foundry market share reached 54.1% in the first quarter of 2020, significantly exceeding Samsung Electronics’ 15.9% market share. It is worth mentioning that TSMC’s market share increased by 1.4 percentage points from the previous quarter.
In addition, Samsung Electronics, the leader in the DRAM and NAND flash memory markets, has not hinted that it will invest in 2020. However, investment is expected to increase compared with 2019. It invested 6 trillion won in semiconductor equipment in the first quarter of 2020, a year-on-year increase of 66%. On the other hand, the company needs to make additional investments in the production lines of its factories, and Samsung is expected to focus its investments on improving profitability rather than increasing production.
The report stated that although the new crown epidemic continues to reduce the investment scale of each company, high expectations for market recovery after the epidemic is driving the investment expansion of the first batch of companies.
(proofread/Jurnan)
