SEMI (Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International) forecasts that the world's fab equipment spending this year will reach US$40.5 billion, up 15.0% year on year. In particular, Taiwan will be the world's largest spender on fab equipment in 2015, spending around US$11.9 billion or 29.4% of the worldwide total, followed by Korea's US$9 billion, America's US$7.0 billion, and China's US$4.7 billion. SEMI expects that capex (capital expenditure) for most of the large semiconductor companies, including fab equipment and fab construction, to increase by 8% in 2015 and 3% in 2016.