Report: The amount of sales of chip production equipment will reach 156 billion dollars by 2027

According to SEMI, an organization that brings together various companies in the semiconductor industry’s supply chain, global sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment will have an upward trend at least until 2027. This growth is due to increased chip demand from the artificial intelligence sector, as well as continued investment growth in China, which aims to achieve self-sufficiency in the semiconductor sector.

SEMI estimates that sales of semiconductor manufacturing tools, including wafer fab equipment (WFE), test equipment, and assembly and packaging (A&P) equipment, will reach approximately $133 billion in 2025, representing an annual growth rate of 13.7 percent. This figure will increase to 145 billion dollars in 2026 and to 156 billion dollars in 2027. SEMI predicts that both the front-end and back-end segments will expand steadily throughout the forecast period. The organization has revised its forecast to mid-2025 due to stronger-than-expected sales of AI accelerators and the infrastructure needed to support them.

Front end equipment

In the overall semiconductor fabrication tools market, wafer fab equipment remains the dominant category in the front-end segment. After achieving revenue of $104 billion in 2024, WFE revenue is projected to grow 11% to $115.7 billion in 2025, above SEMI’s mid-year estimate. This forecast revision reflects increased spending in DRAM, particularly high-bandwidth memory (HBM), as well as continued factory construction in China. This growth is expected to continue in the following years, with WFE sales growing at a CAGR of 9% in 2026 and 7.3% in 2027, eventually reaching $135.2 billion.

On the application side, spending on foundry equipment is forecast to grow 9.8% annually to $66.6 billion in 2025, as companies such as Intel, Samsung and TSMC continue to invest in advanced manufacturing capabilities. SEMI expects this segment to expand further in 2026 and 2027, reaching $75.2 billion as production of artificial intelligence accelerators, high-performance computing (HPC) processors, and high-end mobile chips increases.

Although DRAM and NAND manufacturers have shown little willingness to invest heavily in expanding their production capacity, SEMI predicts that the memory segment will see a particularly strong comeback in the coming years. DRAM equipment sales will grow 15.4% to $22.5 billion in 2025, and then continue to grow in 2026 and 2027 as HBM production scales up and transitions to more advanced process technologies. Spending on 3D NAND manufacturing tools is also expected to jump 45.4% to $14 billion in 2025, then increase to $15.7 billion in 2026 and $16.9 billion in 2027; The growth is caused by increasing the number of 3D NAND layers and adding new capacities.

backend equipment

Back-end tools, which have started their recovery since 2024, are expected to maintain their strong momentum. Chip test equipment revenue is forecast to jump 48.1% to $11.2 billion in 2025, then grow 12% in 2026 and 7.1% in 2027. Assembly and packaging (A&P) equipment is also projected to grow 19.6% to $6.4 billion in 2025 and continue to expand through 2027. SEMI attributes this trend to increasingly complex device architectures, rapid adoption of advanced and heterogeneous packaging, and higher performance requirements for AI processors and HBM stacks.

China remains the largest market

Geographically, China, Taiwan, and South Korea are expected to remain the largest semiconductor equipment markets throughout the forecast period. Even with growth moderating after 2026, China is expected to maintain its leading position as domestic manufacturers invest in mature nodes and some select advanced nodes. Taiwan’s high spending in 2025 reflects the addition of extensive capacity for advanced AI and HPC logic chips, possibly including memory. Meanwhile, South Korea’s increased spending is expected to be driven by major investments in advanced memory technologies, including HBM.

Other regions are also expected to see increased spending in 2026 and 2027, although SEMI attributes this to government incentives, bringing manufacturing back in-country and expanding specialized capacity.