SAN FRANCISCO — SEMI today announced rosy growth over the next two years for worldwide semiconductor equipment sales.

The trade group forecasts the total semiconductor equipment market will grow 7% in 2015 to $40.2 billion and another 4% in 2016 to $41.8 billion.

The tables reflect market size in billions of US dollars and percentage growth over the prior year:

Totals may not add due to rounding. Source: SEMI, July 2015

Following growth of 18% in 2014, the equipment market is poised to continue to expand for the next two years. Key drivers for equipment spending are investments by memory and foundry fabs. Front-end wafer processing equipment is forecast to grow 10% in 2015 to $32.1 billion, up from $29.3 billion in 2014. Test equipment, assembly and packaging equipment are forecast to contract this year, falling 3% and 9%, respectively, to $3.5 billion and $2.8 billion, respectively.

Taiwan is forecast to continue as the world’s largest spender with $10.9 billion estimated for 2015 and $10 billion for 2016. In 2015, South Korea is second at $8.6 billion, followed by North America at $6.5 billion. For 2016, these three regions are expected to maintain their relative rankings.

In 2015, year-over-year increases are expected to be largest for South Korea (25%), Taiwan (16%), Europe (14%), and Japan (13%). Projected year-over-year percentage increases for 2016 are largest for Europe (26%), China (19%), South Korea (8%), and Rest of World (7%).

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