Global semiconductor sales fell more than 20% in the first quarter!

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) announced that global semiconductor sales totaled $119.5 billion in the first quarter of 2023, down 8.7% compared to the fourth quarter of 2022 and 21.3% compared to the first quarter of 2022. Sales increased 0.3% in March 2023 compared to February 2023.

Image credit: SIA

By region, monthly sales increased in Europe (2.7%), Asia Pacific/All Other Regions (2.6%) and China (1.2%), but declined in Japan (-1.1%) and the Americas (-3.5%). All sales fell, Europe (0.7%), Japan (1.3%), the americas (16.4%), and all other areas of the asia-pacific/(22.2%) and China (34.1%).

"Semiconductor sales continued to decline in the first quarter of 2023 due to market cyclicality and macroeconomic headwinds, but monthly sales rose in March for the first time in nearly a year, providing optimism for a rebound in the months ahead," said SIA President and CEO John Neuffer.

Source: Jiwei Network

At present, semiconductor integrated circuits (ics) rely on advanced process breakthroughs to achieve performance iterations are slowing down, and the improvement of packaging forms has attracted more attention from the industry. Traditional packaging is transforming to FC, FIWLP, FOWLP, TSV, SIP and other advanced packaging. Advanced packaging is expected to become the mainstream direction in the post-Moore era.

Advanced packaging has the advantages of low manufacturing cost and low power consumption, which will bring the value of multiple links of the industrial chain. Taking Chiplet (core) technology as an example, through the deconstruction and reconstruction integration of the chip, it reshapes the whole value chain from upstream EDA, IP, design to downstream packaging and materials, bringing new technical challenges and market opportunities for many links. According to Yole data, the global packaging market will reach about $77.7 billion in 2021. Among them, the global market size of advanced packaging is about 35 billion US dollars, and the global market size of advanced packaging is expected to reach 47.5 billion US dollars by 2026.

Domestic and foreign test leaders ASE, Anrely, Changdian Technology, Tongfu Micro electricity, Huatian Technology and other layout of Chiplet business, Intel, AMD, Huawei are also actively involved. The major suppliers of semiconductor packaging materials in the world include Japan's Shin-etsu Chemical, Sumitomo Chemical, Germany's BASF, DuPont and other companies, occupying the main market share. With the completion and operation of Chinese Fab factories, and the continuous improvement of materials requirements for advanced packaging processes, the future IC packaging materials market growth space is huge.