TrendForce: 's 12-inch production capacity will increase by 14% next year, and more than half of it will be a mature process.

As the major wafer factories expand production and enter the landing period, the protracted chip shortage is expected to be alleviated. TrendForce, a market survey agency, estimates that global wafer foundry production capacity of 8 inches in 2022 will grow by 6% year-on-year and 14% in 12 inches compared with the same period last year.

According to the industry forecast released by TrendForce on Wednesday (20th), more than half of the additional 12-inch production capacity is the mature process with the most serious shortage, namely 1Xnm and above, which is expected to effectively alleviate the chip supply problem, which is still very tight so far.

However, the agency also pointed out that even so, wafer capacity is still quite scarce in 2022, and the impact on terminal capacity such as smartphones remains to be seen.

For smartphones, against the backdrop of the slowing impact of the epidemic, it is expected to return to 2019 levels in 2022, with full-year production capacity of 1.39 billion units, an annual increase of 3.5 per cent. For 5G mobile phones, as the coverage of 5G base stations rises steadily, the penetration rate of 5G mobile phones is expected to increase from 37% in 2021 to 47% in 2022.

On the whole, the development of smartphones still needs to focus on the epidemic situation, in addition to contract manufacturing capacity, the shortage of parts and the resulting mobile phone costs also need to be paid attention to.