Total worldwide installed capacity for MEMS and sensors fabs is forecast to grow 25% to 4.7 million wafers per month (200mm equivalent capacity – excludes R&D, pilot and EPI lines) from 2018 to 2023, driven by demand across communications, transportation, medical, mobile, industrial and other Internet of Things (IoT) applications, according to the new MEMS & Sensors Fab Report to 2023 published by SEMI.

Listing more than 230 companies with more than 400 facilities, the report is the first of its kind focused on MEMS and sensors front end facilities. The report, spanning the 12 years starting in 2012, predicts that MEMS fabs will account for 46% of all MEMS and sensors facilities by 2023. Image sensors fabs will represent 40% of the total, and other fabs – those producing both MEMS and image sensors – the remaining 14%.

Japan led the world in MEMS and sensors capacity in 2018, followed by Taiwan, the Americas, and Europe/Mideast. China is on track to rise from the sixth position this year to the third largest region in installed capacity by 2023. Japan and Taiwan are expected to maintain the top two positions through 2023.

The MEMS and Sensors Fab Report to 2023 shows fab equipment investments hovering at about US$4 billion per year from 2018 to 2023, with most of the spending – an estimated 70% – devoted to fabs for image sensors made on 300mm wafer sizes. During the same period, Japan’s fab equipment investment is expected to peak at nearly US$2 billion in 2020, with Taiwan topping out at US$1.6 billion in 2023.

All told, 14 new device volume fabs will be added from 2018 to 2023 for MEMS and sen-sors made on wafers ranging from 8 inches to 12 inches in size. China shows the largest increase in new volume fabs followed by Japan, Taiwan and Europe.