According to SEMI's (Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International) statistics, global semiconductor equipment sales value, including wafer fab construction, photo mask fabrication, wafer fabrication, wafer processing (FEOL/BEOL manufacturing equipment), assembly, packaging, and testing, has exceeded US$30 billion every year. Taiwanese vendors' investment alone accounts for 30% of the global sales, equivalent to over US$10 billion.

"While Taiwan has been the world's largest semiconductor equipment market for five consecutive years, the high-end semiconductor equipment market has long been dominated by foreign vendors," says MIC (Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute).

"Taiwanese vendors have mainly acted as distributors, contract manufacturers, or assembly service providers, except for some back-end packaging and testing equipment, peripheral equipment, and PCB manufacturing equipment."

With the prosperity of 3D IC technology lying ahead, Taiwanese end-use product vendors are in desperate need to cut down costs (equipment and raw materials alike) to meet their mass production requirements. TSMC is one of the examples.

In addition to CoWoS process, the company has developed InFO 3D packaging technology for lower mass production costs. Unlike high-end processes, the technology node for 3D IC is μm level which conforms to Taiwanese equipment vendors' development competences.

Therefore, the growth of 3D IC technology will likely help Taiwanese vendors break the dominance of foreign vendors in the market as 10% of equipment replacement represents NT$30 billion worth of business. With high demand and its future-proof feature, 3D IC technology is an untapped market worth to be developed by Taiwanese governments and industries.