The market for semiconductor gas related equipment has been experiencing a rapid downturn since summer 2018, reports The Gas Review.

The number of orders has decreased so drastically that the gas equipment manufacturers are reviewing their respective production lines. If the decrease continues, it is predicted there will be a drop of 10% from the record high level attained in 2017.

The capital investment for the production of 3D-NAND flash memory or DRAM has grown at a high rate of 10-20% for five years consecutively.

That being said, orders and outstanding deliveries appeared to remain sluggish during this April and the following months, and an apparent dropping was further recognised in August.

The delays are mainly due to the postponement announcement of the capital investment plan by Samsung Electronics, Micron and Intel, which applied the break on the demand of semiconductor manufacturing equipment.