Current 2003 budgets across the chip industry call for a 5% rise in 2003 to about $29.7 billion, according to the latest 'update' report from IC Insights. However, IC Insights reckons that in an "up" year these chip company budgets are likely to be 10% less than companies' final spending.

"IC Insights forecasts that 2003 semiconductor capital spending budgets will show a 5% increase, but actual 2003 spending will be 15% higher than in 2002," the update said.

Such spending would come as a relief for the semiconductor equipment industry, coming after 2002 spending of about $28.2 billion, a 37% drop from 2001 spending. However, even a 15% increase in capital expenditure is unlikely to be enough to stave off shortages in leading-edge production carrying over into 2004, the researcher said.

IC Insights pointed out in the report that capital equipment spending plans, despite the large amounts of money involved, can be very volatile.

"IC Insights believes that companies such as Intel, TI, Toshiba, NEC, Fujitsu, Hitachi, ST, Samsung, TSMC, and UMC may significantly increase their spending plans sometime in 2003 from the budget levels currently listed," it says in the November 2002 report.

IC Insights lists the capital equipment spending and estimates forward budgets for 45 of the leading semiconductor manufacturers in the November update. From that list SBN has abstracted the top 20 estimated capex budgets for 2003.

Top 20 estimated capex budgets for 2003
Rank	Company	Capex($mil)	y-on-y change (%)
1	Intel	4600	-2%
2	Samsung	2600	-13%
3	TSMC	1500	- 9%
4	Micron	1000	+11%
5	STMicro	1000	0%
6	Dongbu	less than 1000	n/a
7	Infineon	900	+50%
8	UMC Group	900	+13%
9	IBM	900	-14%
10	Elpida	750	+7%
11	Texas Inst.	750	-6%
12	Toshiba	600	+43%
13	Matsushita	600	-11%
14	AMD	600	-13%
15	NEC	550	+36%
16	Sony	500	0%
17	Philips	500	-18%
18	ProMOS	400	+33%
19	Fujitsu	400	+18%
20	Chartered	400	-11%

Source: IC Insights -- November 2002 'update'