The global semiconductor equipment market is expected to grow 20.8% on year in 2014 to US$38.4 billion and to expand another 10.8% in 2015 to exceed US$42.6 billion, according to SEMI.

Key drivers for equipment spending are investments by foundry and logic fabs for sub 20nm technology, NAND flash makers for leading edge technology (including 3D NAND) and capacity, DRAM technology upgrades for mobile applications, and expansion of advanced packaging capacity for flip chip, wafer bumping, and wafer-level packaging.

All regions of the world are projected to see equipment spending increases in 2015. Front-end wafer processing equipment is forecast to grow 11.9% in 2015 to US$34.8 billion, up from $31.1 billion in 2014. Test equipment and assembly and packaging equipment is forecast to experience growth in 2015, rising to US$3.1 billion (up 1.6%) and US$2.6 billion (up 1.2%), respectively. The forecast indicates that 2015 is on track to be the second largest spending year ever, surpassed only by US$47.7 billion spent in 2000.

Growth is forecast in all regions except RoW (rest of the world) in 2014 .Taiwan is forecast to continue to be the world's largest spender with US$11.6 billion estimated for 2014 and US$12.3 billion for 2015. In 2014, North America is second at US$7.2 billion, followed by Korea at US$6.9 billion. For 2015, South Korea is in second (US$8.0 billion) in spending, followed by North America (US$7.3 billion).

In 2014, on-year increases are expected to be the largest for China (47.3%), North America (35.7%), Korea (33.0%), and Europe (29.7%). On-year percentage increases for 2015 are the largest for Europe (47.8%), RoW (23.5%), Japan (15.6%), and South Korea (15.0%).