COVID-19 Impact on the Global Wafer Cleaning Equipment Market

The wafer cleaning equipment market includes major Tier 1 and 2 suppliers like SCREEN Holdings Co., Ltd., Tokyo Electron Limited, Applied Materials, LAM Research, Shibaura Mechatronics Corporation, PVA TePLA AG, Entregris Inc., Semes Co. Ltd., Modutek Corporation, and Veeco Instruments. These suppliers have their manufacturing facilities spread across various countries across Asia Pacific, Europe, North America, South America, and RoW. The wafer cleaning equipment manufactured by these companies are used by end-use industries such as automotive, consumer electronics, healthcare, and few others. Covid-19 not only impacted the operations of the various semiconductor equipment manufacturing industries, but also affected the businesses of companies from the above-mentioned industries. The low demand for consumer electronic devices due to lockdown measures had a global impact on the wafer cleaning equipment market. The continuous fall in the global demand and export shipments for automotive vehicles is also expected to negatively impact the wafer cleaning equipment market. However, the market for wafer cleaning equipment is expected to rebound owning to increasing demand from the healthcare sector. Increasing demand for personal monitoring devices is expected to drive the market even during these times of pandemic.

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Wafer Cleaning Equipment Market Dynamics

Driver: Growing adoption of MEMS technology in patient monitoring devices to help revive the market during the COVID-19 pandemic

The demand for micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) is increasing owing to their growing adoption in conventional and modern applications, such as medical devices, communication systems, automotive sensor devices, and inertial sensing systems. The miniature design of MEMS is a major contributing factor to its adoption in various applications. Due to their smaller size, MEMS can be used in almost all electronic devices, which is further pushing the demand for MEMS in the semiconductor market. MEMS technology has captured the largest market share of consumer electronics and automotive industries and gaining momentum in industrial, healthcare, and smart farming applications. MEMS devices have experienced a surge in demand from the healthcare sector during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, owning to its increasing application for portable patient monitoring devices used by healthcare workers and medical institutions globally.

Restraint: Environmental concerns owning to emission of hazardous chemicals and gases during wafer cleaning process

Wafer cleaning is one of the most basic and recurrent steps in the semiconductor industry to meet the rising demand for superior quality semiconductor devices. However, constantly shrinking dimensions of devices have resulted in the establishment of rigid standards regarding acceptable levels of impurities. In the wafer fabrication and cleaning processes, some of the toxic chemicals and acids such as antimony (Sb), antimony trioxide (SbO3), arsenic pentafluoride (AsF5), arsenic (As), boron trichloride (BCl3), boron trifluoride (BF3), chlorine (Cl), germane (GeH4), hydrogen sulfide (H2S), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), and oxidized carbon are used. All these chemicals are hazardous and toxic and have an adverse impact on human health and the environment. Hence, their usage and applications are to be performed in a controlled environment.

Opportunity: Rising demand for wafers in 3D structure

Since 3D devices are becoming more popular, the demand for silicon wafers for use in 3D applications is also increasing at a rapid rate. 3D devices, to perform seamlessly, require silicon-made structures. The 3D structure consists of transistors and 3D chips. This 3D structure requires high-quality silicon wafers that are cleaned with high precision. The growing utilization of silicon wafers in 3D devices is expected to increase the demand for advanced wafer cleaning equipment offering extremely clean wafers for high-precision 3D technology applications such as 3D ICs and NAND flash memory.

Challenge: Delaying of investment plans for capacity expansion by wafer manufacturers due to COVID-19

Prior to COVID-19, the growing demand for wafers led to an increase in the adoption of wafer cleaning equipment to carry out the fabrication and cleaning process of wafers thoroughly and effectively. However, the coronavirus pandemic has added to the challenge for wafer manufacturers to expand their facilities. Globally, the investment plans for semiconductor industries having a dedicated fabrication facility has halted, owing to the weakening financial position of the manufacturers.

LED application segment is expected to witness the second fastest market growth during the forecast period

LED application segment is expected to witness the second fastest market growth during the forecast period. Increasing adoption of smartphones and growing deployment of electronic components in automobiles are the major factors driving the growth of the wafer cleaning equipment market for LED application. The market for LEDs is increasing significantly, and a similar trend is expected to be observed during the forecast period. As a result, the demand for wafer cleaning equipment is also expected to increase in the near future. With the increase in the spread of COVID-19, there is an expansion in the healthcare facilities to accommodate a large number of patients globally. This has increased the demand of LED for a short duration, which is expected to drive the wafer demand, gradually increasing the market for wafer cleaning equipment once the manufacturing process regains smoothly.

Batch spray cleaning system to account for largest market share of wafer cleaning equipment market in 2025

Batch spray cleaning system expected to dominate the wafer cleaning equipment market in 2025. Growth of this segment can be attributed to the various benefits provided by the system which includes processing multiple wafers all at a time, saving time and cleaning cost. Batch processing is adopted for volume manufacturing which helps attain economies of scale. A batch spray cleaning system is capable to perform functions of both a single wafer processing system and a batch immersion processing system, which gives it a far-out advantage and the ability to yield large batches with a high throughput or small batches with short cycle times.

300 mm wafer size expected to witness largest market share in 2020

Based on wafer size, 300 mm wafer is expected to account for a share of 52% in the wafer cleaning equipment market. The growth can be attribute d to the growing use of these wafers LEDs, MEMS, ICs, among many other electronic and semiconductor devices. Though the market for ICs is impacted due to global impact on consumer electronics, owning to the widespread coronavirus pandemic, the market for 300 mm wafers is expected to witness a low impact because of its use in MEMS for patient monitoring. Also, 300 mm wafers are increasingly being adopted in LED applications due their greater yield as compared with other wafer dimensions.

Asia Pacific is leading the wafer cleaning equipment market, globally, by market share, in 2019

The advancements in capabilities of semiconductor equipment manufacturing industry in Asian economies such as China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan drives the wafer cleaning equipment market in the region. The region has also emerged as a central point for increasing investments and business expansion capabilities for major key players from the wafer cleaning equipment market. Favorable economic conditions and cheap labor costs in the region are the key driving factors for increasing business opportunities. Moreover, high presence of wafer and IC manufacturing firms in the region contribute to the growth of the wafer cleaning equipment market.

The recent COVID-19 pandemic is expected to impact the global wafer cleaning equipment industry. The entire supply chain is disrupted due to limited supply of parts. For instance, the outbreak of COVID-19 in China resulted in lockdown measures which included the shutdown of manufacturing facilities and warehouses and affected the global exports and shipments of various industries. The lockdown also led to a fall in the domestic and export demand for consumer electronics, automotive vehicles, and other industrial equipment and devices as the impact of COVID-19 spreads to other countries.