What’s telling is that Taiwan’s semiconductor manufacturing equipment market keeps enlarging, and it is still the largest market in the world.

Semiconductor equipment plays a vital role in the manufacturing of integrated devices, which is typically located in a manufacturing facility called a fab. The types or categories of semiconductor equipment consist of the wafer manufacturing, wafer processing, fab facilities equipment and mask, reticle equipment, etc.

SEMI, the global industry association for companies that supply manufacturing technology and materials to the world’s chip makers, reported that worldwide semiconductor manufacturing equipment billings reached US$9.6 billion in the third quarter of 2015.

However, the billings figure is 3 percent higher than the second quarter of 2015 and 9 percent higher than the same quarter a year ago. The data is gathered jointly with the Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan (SEAJ) from over 100 global equipment companies that provide data on a monthly basis.