A weak memory market and US sanctions on China semiconductor producers are driving factors behind the expected 19% drop in semiconductor capital spending in 2023.

Samsung Electronics slashed 2018 capex by more than a quarter on Wednesday and warned of lower profit until early next year, calling an end to a two-year boom in memory chips that fueled record third-quarter profit.

Instinet's Romit Shah today asks whether Intel's surprising step-up in its spending outlook presages greater investment in its relationship with Apple or some other project as yet undisclosed.

Samsung's chip capex was $13-13.5 billion last year and will be $11.5 billion this year estimates Srini Sundararajan at Summit Research.

US chipmakers are cutting back "sharply" on spending, according to fresh analysis from Citigroup. Spending by semiconductor companies is expected to fall 19.8% this year from 2014, when it dropped a modest 0.9%.

Samsung Electronics is tapping its $50 billion cash pile to buy back shares and invest in its components business after struggles in the smartphone division battered investors. Shares surged.

Intel is set slip to third place in a ranking of chip companies compiled by Semico Research, based on forecast capital expenditure in 2015.

Shares of chip equipment makers Applied Materials, KLA-Tencor, and Lam Research are all up in after-market trading, following a Q4 report from Intel in which it projected capital spending to be flat this year with last year's level.

Xilinx and NXP have announced their collaboration to reduce capex and opex costs of wireless infrastructure radios.

Apple came in at No. 46 on the European Union's R&D spending report released this week, which ranked the top 2,000 global companies.

With Toshiba's existing chip facilities now running at full capacity, the company may spend some of a 38% hike in its capex budget this year on extending a factory, the company's incoming president, Hisao Tanaka, said in a recent interview.

Contract chipmaker Globalfoundries will spend US$4.5 billion to boost production capacity in 2013, anticipating a burst in orders for chips used in low-cost smartphones.

GlobalFoundries, the contract chip manufacturer whose clients include Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Qualcomm, plans to spend US$4.4 billion in 2013 to expand production as demand for smartphones and tablets climbs.

Industry consolidation to just three big DRAM suppliers and a reduction in capital expenditures among these manufacturers helped propel DRAM average selling prices (ASPs) up 13% year over year in January. Capex budgets are also being trimmed for NAND flash (though not nearly as much as DRAM), and that, along with ongoing unit demand, has put upward pressure on ASPs for these memory devices as well.

"Samsung's 2013 semiconductor capex will be conducted in a very conservative way. Opinions are gathering into a significant cut in facility investment next year," a senior official at Samsung was quoted as saying.

Intel's R&D expenditures accounted for 32% of the top-10 spending and about 17% of total R&D expenses at all semiconductor companies worldwide-counting IDMs, fabless suppliers and foundries.

"It is likely that it will be raised, but we can't confirm until April 26" when the company's quarterly investor conference will be held, Elizabeth Sun, a spokeswoman for the Hsinchu, Taiwan-based company, said by phone today, without commenting on the size of the increase.

South Korea's Samsung Group announced it would invest a record 47.8 trillion won (US$41.56 billion) this year and hire an all-time high of 26,000 new employees despite global economic gloom.

Hynix Semiconductor has set around KRW4 trillion (US$3.5 billion) for its 2012 capital expenditure, up 18% from the KRW3.4 trillion set for this year, an online news provider Edaily reported Thursday, citing industry sources.

Samsung Electronics plans to invest a record KRW38 trillion (US$34 billion) in 2012, sharply up from around KRW30 trillion this year, local online news provider Edaily reported Wednesday, citing unnamed industry sources.

Enterprise IT spending will stagger and fall this year but may back on one leg in 2012 despite swingeing public sector cuts and the looming Eurozone financial catastrophe.

Japan's economy contracted more severely in the second quarter than was initially estimated, revised government data has shown. The decline came as companies cut back spending due to concerns about a slowing global economy and a rising yen.

Samsung Electronics CEO Choi Gee-sung said on July 26 that the firm has no plans to revise down its capex for the second half and that its bread-and-butter memory chip business would get additional investment this year.

"What foundries are seeing more and more, and what we're seeing overall, is a very tight linkage to consumer demand. All of us are disappointed with demand for PCs this year, and tablets probably will be 20 million units short of what people thought was possible for the year..."

The memory-chip industry will keep a lid on capital expenditures this year, helping avoid a repeat of the production glut that plagued the industry until 2010, Micron Technology CEO Steve Appleton said.

Amid a loss and some US$454.0 million in disputed claims against the company, Spansion has raised its capital spending for 2011.

Globalfoundries plans to double its capital spending to US$5.4 billion in 2011, said CFO Robert Krakauer. The money will go toward upgrading a plant in Dresden, Germany, building another in upstate New York and planning a factory in Abu Dhabi.

Amid a slowdown in DRAM, Samsung Electronics is reducing its capital spending by 14% for 2011.

"Capex will go up when our customers see the potential of the market. It will go down when it's not there. Every discussion we've had with customers indicates capex will not go down (next year)," ASML CFO Wennink said.

The world's largest memory chipmaker is forecast to invest US$9.2 billion in its semiconductors business next year, according to an industry report.

Don't look now, but a fab tool downturn could be on the horizon.

"It's difficult to set a clear plan for the coming year 2011, but we're considering around 30 trillion won [in investments]," Samsung Electronics CEO Choi Gee-sung told reporters on the sidelines of consumer-electronics show IFA on September 3.

"We believe Globalfoundries will continue to ramp capacity over the next few quarters despite a weakening macro environment," said an analyst with Needham & Co. LLC, in a report. "We estimate Globalfoundries' capex will grow from about US$2.6 billion in 2010 to US$3.0-4.0 billion in 2011..."

The US$72 billion increase in 2010 would equate to a growth rate of 30% over 2009. This 30% jump would be the sixth largest in the past 32 years and the highest since the 37% increase 10 years ago in 2000.

Hynix Semiconductor has said it would invest 456 billion won (US$373.4 million) to boost and upgrade its production capacity.

At the beginning of this year, it was clear that only a few companies would spend more than US$1 billion each in 2010. This has suddenly changed: some companies have announced record levels of capex plans.

Hynix Semiconductor said on May 31 it would raise its capital expenditure by a third to 3.05 trillion won (US$2.5 billion) this year to take advantage of a strong recovery in the global technology sector.

"Current strong market conditions will last for at least another three or four quarters...we are considering raising (capital investment for this year) by 20-30%," according to Hynix CFO Kim Min-chul.

Micron Technology sees strong demand for computer memory this year even as major players like Samsung invest billions of dollars to increase production, according to company president Mark Durcan.