On July 14, 2026, California time, SEMI released its Mid Year Total Semiconductor Equipment Forecast - OEM Perspective, which predicts that global semiconductor manufacturing equipment (OEM) total sales will reach a historic high of $165.9 billion in 2026, a year-on-year increase of 23.2%. The growth momentum is expected to continue until 2028, with total equipment sales expected to reach a record high of $229.5 billion, achieving five consecutive years of growth. AI driven demand is reshaping the semiconductor manufacturing investment landscape.
This optimistic outlook reflects the acceleration of AI infrastructure investment, as well as the increase in investment in cutting-edge logic, advanced storage, and backend technologies required to support higher computing density, high bandwidth storage (HBM) related investments, and increasingly complex device architectures.
SEMI President and CEO Ajit Manocha said, "AI is accelerating the demand for more powerful and efficient chips, driving investment growth in the entire semiconductor capital equipment market. Mid year forecasts show that as chip manufacturers invest in cutting-edge logic, advanced storage, testing, and packaging required for the AI era, device spending trajectories are on the rise. ”
Semiconductor equipment sales revenue (segmented by market)
Since setting a sales record of $116.9 billion last year, the wafer fab equipment (WFE) sector, including wafer processing, wafer fab facilities, and mask/photomask equipment, is expected to grow 23.1% to $143.9 billion by 2026. This is a significant increase from SEMI's year-end 2025 forecast, reflecting the enhancement of investment in advanced storage (especially HBM related DRAM technology) and cutting-edge logic applications. WFE's segmented sales are expected to increase by 21.8% in 2027 and 14.1% in 2028, surpassing the $200 billion mark as manufacturers accelerate capacity expansion and technology migration to meet AI related workload demands.
The demand for AI related semiconductors is also driving market expansion in the backend equipment field. After a surge of 55.3% in 2025, semiconductor testing equipment sales are expected to increase by 31% to $15.3 billion in 2026, significantly higher than SEMI's year-end forecast. The sales of packaging equipment are expected to increase by 20.8% in 2025, and are projected to grow by 9.6% to $6.7 billion in 2026, which is consistent with previous forecasts. The growth is expected to continue until 2028, with testing equipment reaching $20.8 billion and packaging equipment reaching $8.6 billion, thanks to increased device complexity, increased adoption of advanced heterogeneous packaging, and stricter performance and reliability requirements for AI and HBM devices.
WFE sales revenue (by application)
WFE sales for Foundry and Logic applications are expected to increase by 18.9% year-on-year to $78 billion in 2026, thanks to cutting-edge node capacity building for AI accelerators, high-performance computing, and high-end mobile processors. This niche market is expected to grow 18.1% in 2027 and 13.6% in 2028, reaching $104.7 billion, as the industry moves towards mass production of 2nm fully enclosed grid level (GAA) nodes.
The expenditure on storage related devices is expected to significantly expand by 2028, driven by HBM demand, advanced DRAM node migration, and NAND technology transformation. DRAM device sales are expected to increase by 39.0% to $38.8 billion in 2026, followed by a growth of 27.4% in 2027 and 15.0% in 2028, reaching $56.9 billion. NAND device sales are expected to increase by 30.7% to $13.9 billion in 2026, with a further growth of 31.1% in 2027 and 14.5% in 2028, reaching $20.8 billion, thanks to 3D NAND layer migration and higher density architecture investments.
Semiconductor equipment sales revenue (by region)
Chinese Mainland, Taiwan, China and South Korea are expected to remain the top three in equipment expenditure until 2028. Chinese Mainland is expected to maintain its leading position in the forecast period, but the growth rate is expected to slow in 2026, because the investment level has been at a high level in recent years. Equipment expenditure in Taiwan, China, China is supported by AI and advanced capacity construction of high-performance computing; The equipment expenditure in South Korea is driven by advanced storage technologies, including HBM. The other regions covered by the report are expected to increase equipment spending in 2027 and 2028, thanks to regionalization efforts, government incentives, and targeted expansion of characteristic production capacity.
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Monthly semiconductor equipment shipment report, providing an early perspective on equipment market trends;
Monthly Global Semiconductor Equipment Market Statistics Report (WWSEMS), providing detailed data on semiconductor equipment orders and shipments for seven major regions and over 22 segmented markets worldwide;
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