Urgent orders boost wafer foundry utilisation in Q2

Comparing this demand spike to the previous quarter, capacity utilisation rates have improved significantly. Additionally, strong demand for AI servers further boosted the total revenue of the world’s top ten wafer foundries to USD 32 billion in 2Q24, a 9.6% increase.

The rankings among the top five foundries remained unchanged in Q2, with TSMC, Samsung, SMIC, UMC, and GlobalFoundries standing steadfast in their positions. Among the sixth to tenth spots however, VIS benefited from urgent DDI orders and the de-risking bonus from PMIC, which drove shipment growth, bringing the company to eighth place. PSMC and Nexchip fell to ninth and tenth, respectively, as such making the rankings: HuaHong Group, Tower, VIS, PSMC, and Nexchip.

TrendForce points out that Q3 marks the start of the traditional peak season for inventory buildup. Despite uncertain global economic conditions dampening consumer confidence, new smartphone and PC/NB product launches in the second half of the year are expected to generate solid demand for SoCs and peripheral ICs. Coupled with ongoing rapid growth in HPC demand related to AI servers, demand is expected to remain strong through the end of the year, with some advanced process orders already extending visibility into 2025. This demand will be a key growth driver in 2024.

The analysts at TrendForce expect that with improved utilisation of both advanced and mature process capacities, the revenue of the global top 10 foundries is likely to increase further in Q3 – with growth comparable to that of Q2.