The research agency Semi expects that in 2017 there will be in the world 864 semiconductor production units against the current 861. Excluding the plants for the production of DEL and of discrete from the calculation, the present number of 440 plants will remain constant.
The 14% capacity rise in terms of produced quantities is anyway foreseen from 2012 to 2017, growing from 18.1 million wafer starts per month implemented in 2012 to around 20.6 millions in 2017. Therefore, the expected capacity increase will take place almost completely through the development of the plants existing today.
