Global Chip Sales Hit $88.8 Billion in February as Industry Races Toward $1 Trillion in 2026

By NineScrolls Team · 2026-04-05 · 4 min read · Industry

February Sales Surge 61.8% Year-Over-Year

The Semiconductor Industry Association reported on April 3 that global chip sales reached $88.8 billion in February 2026, a 7.6% increase over January's $82.5 billion and a 61.8% jump from February 2025's $54.9 billion. The figures, compiled by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization, represent a three-month moving average.

"Global chip sales remained very strong in February, exceeding January's totals and far outpacing sales from February of last year," said SIA president and CEO John Neuffer. "Sales into the Asia-Pacific region, the Americas, and China were all major drivers of year-to-year growth."

The $1 Trillion Milestone in Sight

The February figure extends a trajectory that puts the global semiconductor industry on pace to cross $1 trillion in annual revenue for the first time in 2026. Full-year 2025 sales reached $791.7 billion, up 25.6% from 2024. At the current run rate, the $1 trillion threshold is within reach — a milestone that would have seemed implausible just two years ago when the industry was recovering from a cyclical downturn.

AI remains the structural catalyst. Demand for advanced logic chips powering training and inference workloads — combined with surging orders for High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) and high-capacity NAND for data centers — is pulling the entire supply chain forward at an unprecedented rate.

Regional and Segment Drivers

Asia-Pacific, the Americas, and China led year-over-year growth. The Americas benefited from hyperscaler capital expenditure on AI infrastructure, while China's growth reflects ongoing domestic capacity buildout across both logic and memory segments. SEMI's latest 300mm Fab Outlook, released April 1, projects global 300mm fab equipment spending will rise 18% to $133 billion in 2026 and 14% to $151 billion in 2027 — the first time equipment spending would exceed $150 billion.

Within the memory sector, DRAM equipment investment is expected to total $111 billion cumulatively from 2027 to 2029, with 3D NAND at $62 billion, driven by AI training workloads and inference-driven storage demand. The foundry and logic segment will account for $228 billion over the same period as chipmakers ramp sub-2nm nodes.

Capacity Bottleneck Fueling Equipment Orders

The sales surge is colliding with a severe supply constraint. TSMC's 3nm process has entered what industry sources describe as an "extremely rare state of overload," with actual manufacturing capability falling far short of demand. GPU designers, hyperscale cloud providers including Amazon and Microsoft, and virtually every major chipmaker are competing for allocation. The shortage is disrupting product roadmaps and forcing companies to reconsider downstream commitments.

TSMC is responding with massive capital investment. Its Arizona GigaFab cluster — now a $165 billion project spanning six fabs, two advanced packaging facilities, and an R&D center — will begin 3nm equipment installation in Q3 2026. Combined with TSMC's fully booked 2nm capacity at Fab 20 and Fab 22 in Taiwan, the equipment procurement pipeline is at historic levels.

What This Means for Plasma Processing and Thin Film Deposition

A $1 trillion chip market translates directly into record demand for the front-end equipment that makes those chips possible. Wafer fab equipment — the category that includes plasma etch systems, PECVD tools, and physical and chemical vapor deposition platforms — already hit $104 billion in 2024 and is on a trajectory toward $135 billion by 2027.

Several dynamics are intensifying demand for deposition and etch specifically. Sub-2nm gate-all-around (GAA) transistor architectures require more atomic layer deposition (ALD) steps per wafer for precise gate oxide formation, work function metal tuning, and selective deposition of barrier and liner films. Every additional 3D NAND layer — now pushing past 300 in production — adds paired deposition-and-etch cycles, expanding the installed base of PECVD and plasma etch chambers. And the shift to backside power delivery at leading-edge nodes introduces new via-etch and metal-fill deposition steps that did not exist in prior technology generations.

For the equipment supply chain — plasma source manufacturers, sputtering target suppliers, vacuum component makers, gas delivery system integrators, and process monitoring sensor companies — the runway has never been longer. SEMI's outlook tracks 404 active 300mm fab projects worldwide, with 9 new facilities announced since December 2025 alone. Each one of those fabs will need to be equipped.