Both sectors showed growth, with the tool side hitting a second-best-ever $42.77 billion last year (an increase of 6% vs. 2006) and the materials segment's total sales rising to $42.39 billion (a 13.5% uptick vs. 2006). For both sectors, the wafer-fab portions were the healthiest, with process equipment going up 11% to $31.95 billion ($34.87 billion, if the miscellaneous front-end photomask and wafermaking gear is included) and fab materials increasing to $25 billion, a 17% pop from the previous year.

Since both reports have been released, what follows represents a gander at the "real" semi supplier market--the combination of both tools and materials. When you put the two segments together, the 2007 total climbs to $85.16 billion, almost evenly split between the pair, and the year-to-year percentage increase comes in at 9.4% compared to 2006's total of $77.82 billion. With SEMI forecasting that the materials side will grow another 11% in 2008--to about $47.5 billion--it's likely it will be the alpha sector once this year's results are tabulated, since the equipment community expects low-single-digit growth at best, but could experience a low-double-digit downturn in 2008, pushing south toward (or past) $40 billion.

Regionally, the story is--surprise! (not!)--all about Asia, especially when including Japan. (See the table below for the breakdown.) On the tool side, Taiwan blew by Japan in 2007, spending $10.6 billion, a nearly 46% increase vs. 2006, which surpassed Nippon's $9.3 billion. The combined tool/materials numbers reveal the two island nations in a dead heat, with Japan at $18.62 billion and Taiwan at $18.5 billion. Samsung, Hynix, and the rest of South Korea came in third on the equipment side ($7.35 billion), as well as third overall, with $13.79 billion in total expenditures. China was the fastest-growing region on the materials side---rising 37% year-over-year---and second fastest on the tool half (+26%), edging Taiwan for the largest percentage growth crown, 33.8% vs. 31.6%.

Europe and North America saw continued erosion of their status as preeminent chip manufacturing areas, with both regions dropping double-digits on the tool side and registering less-than-average growth in the materials sector. Europe's combined markets came in at $6.57 billion in 2007, a 6% decrease vs. 2006 and just barely ahead of China's $6.29 billion. In fact, the European equipment market dropped 18.2% in 2007, a 64 percentage point difference compared to Taiwan's bullish results. North America saw its overall market slip 3.4%, ending up at $12.03 billion, falling behind South Korea to fifth place in the standings.

If you roll up all of the Asian numbers (including, for the sake of argument, the rest of world [ROW] results, which mainly comes from Singapore, Malaysia, etc.), $66.56 billion of the $85.16 billion in semiconductor equipment and materials revenues, front- and back-end, was spent in Asia last year.