Lithography equipment market to grow thanks to CIS, power chip

Lithography equipment used in the back-end process of wafer fabrication will grow thanks to increased demand for CMOS image sensors (CIS) and power management ICs, according to Yole Development.

As it becomes increasing difficult for chip makers to shorten the gate length in the front-end process, they will use more lithography equipment on new packaging technologies applied in the back-end process.

The lithography equipment market for “More than Moore” (MtM) applications is expected to grow 9% on average per year from 2020 to 2026, the research firm said. The market will be worth US$1.7 billion in 2026.

More than Moore concept refers to chip makers applying different processes in the back-end to increase chip performances, instead of relying on previous methods that met the so-called “Moore’s Law” where transistor density would double every two years by shortening the gate length.

CIS lithography equipment and power management IC lithography equipment markets will both brow 7% on average per year over the same time period, Yole Development said.

CIS lithography equipment market will be worth US$550 million in 2026, while those for power management IC will be worth US$440 million in the same year.

More and more advanced packaging methods such as fan-out wafer level package and system-in-package are being applied.

Lithography equipment are upgrading their optical performances to support micro patterning.

The MtM photolithography tool market was worth US$1 billion last year, according to Yole Development, with 30% of them being used for CIS. 

Canon was the top supplier of these tools with 34% market share, followed by ASML’s 21% market share.