Worldwide Silicon Wafer Shipments Dip 5% in Q1 2024

Estimated reading time: 1 minute

Worldwide silicon wafer shipments decreased 5.4% quarter-over-quarter to 2,834 million square inches in the first quarter of 2024, a 13.2% drop from the 3,265 million square inches recorded during the same quarter last year, the SEMI Silicon Manufacturers Group (SMG) reported in its quarterly analysis of the silicon wafer industry.

“The continuing decline in IC fab utilization and inventory adjustment led to negative growth across all wafer sizes in Q1 2024, with polished wafer shipments falling slightly more year-over-year than EPI wafer shipments,” said Lee Chungwei (李崇偉), Chairman of SEMI SMG and Vice President and Chief Auditor at GlobalWafers. “Notably, utilization by some fabs bottomed out in Q4 2023 as growing AI adoption fueled rising demand for advanced node logic products and memory for data centers.”

Silicon wafers are the fundamental building material for the majority of semiconductors, which are vital components of all electronic devices. The highly engineered thin disks are produced in diameters of up to 12 inches and serve as the substrate material on which most semiconductors are fabricated.

The SMG is a sub-committee of the SEMI Electronic Materials Group (EMG) and is open to SEMI members involved in manufacturing polycrystalline silicon, monocrystalline silicon or silicon wafers (e.g., as cut, polished, epi). The SMG facilitates collective efforts on issues related to the silicon industry including the development of market information and statistics about the silicon industry and the semiconductor market.