President and CEO, Lam Research
“In January, we shared our outlook for 2026 WFE in the $135 billion range. Since then, spending projections from customers have moved higher across all device segments. We now expect WFE of $140 billion with a bias to the upside.”
Calendar-2026 industry WFE totals will not be known until early 2027; Archer said the figure carries an upward bias.
“In 2025, WFE came in close to $110 billion. Our initial 2026 view is for WFE to be in the $135 billion range, with the growth in spending remaining constrained by a shortage of available clean room space.”
Lam raised this initial view to $140 billion with an upward bias in April 2026; actual calendar-2026 WFE will be known in early 2027.
“We said in early 2025 that roughly $40 billion in conversion spending would be required over several years to enable existing NAND installed wafer capacity to produce devices with more than 200 layers. We now anticipate that this conversion will be pulled forward, with the majority of spending occurring before the end of calendar year 2027.”
Archer attributed the acceleration to AI data centers shifting to higher-layer-count QLC NAND; resolution requires NAND conversion spending data through the end of 2027.