Mature node chip output to surge 6% in 2025

While most industry attention is focused on cutting-edge silicon, China continues to ramp up production of so-called mature nodes, leading to overall capacity increasing by 6 percent in 2025, according to TrendForce.

The Taiwan-based research outfit says that Chinese foundries are set to drive most of this mature process capacity growth next year, thanks to Beijing's domestic semiconductor substitution policies.

The latter are long-term plans to reduce the country's reliance on imported chips, especially in light of efforts by the US to curb China's access to advanced technology, and to increase its own role in the global semiconductor value chain.

In September, it was reported that China had spent more on chipmaking equipment to expand its semiconductor capacity in the first half of this year than the US, Taiwan, and South Korea combined.

TrendForce claims that as this new capacity comes online, China's share of mature process output among the top ten global foundries is likely to pass 25 percent by the end of 2025. The highest increases are expected to be seen in chips produced on 28 and 22nm nodes, but fabrication plants are also advancing their specialty process technologies.

Many products and applications, such as automotive, industrial, and consumer products, continue to rely on chips manufactured on mature processes. This is spurring the global expansion of mature process capacity, TrendForce said, pointing to TSMC's JASM fab in Kumamoto, Japan, as an example.

But China's plans in particular have some observers worried. At the start of this year, a report estimated that the country's chip manufacturing capacity will more than double within the next five to seven years, with fears that this will lead to a market oversupply.

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That could spell disaster for semiconductor manufacturers elsewhere if China-based companies dumped their excess production onto the global marketplace, in a repeat of what has happened with Chinese steel production.

In July, it was revealed that the European Commission was in discussions with Europe's chipmakers about the potential threat, and that both the EU and US were investigating dependencies on mature node ("legacy") semiconductors and possible coordinated action to address it.

US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said at the time that there is "massive subsidization of that industry on behalf of the Chinese government, which could lead to huge market distortion," and that it was estimated that the country might be making about 60 percent of legacy chips coming to the market in the "next handful of years."

Despite this, TrendForce estimates that mature nodes of 28nm and above will only see average capacity utilization increase by 5 to 10 percent in the second half of this year compared to the first, in contrast with the advanced 3 to 5nm nodes used for CPUs and GPUs that are likely to reach full capacity utilization through the end of 2024. ®