‘Prices of silicon wafers will rise by twenty percent this year’

The CEO of GlobalWafers expects prices of silicon wafers to rise by 20 percent in 2018 compared to 2017. Earlier, a larger wafer producer, Sumco, also reported that prices will rise by 20 percent in 2018.

GlobalWafers CEO Doris Hsu has said the price increase is caused by limited supply and strong demand for wafers, Digitimes reports. She says her company will increase production capacity of 200mm and 300mm wafers by seven percent over the course of 2018 as “manufacturing problems” are resolved between May and July.

Shortages will mainly arise in the segment of 12″ wafers, or 300mm wafers. These are used, for example, for the production of processors, graphics chips and dram. It is obvious that due to the rising wafer prices, several computer components will also be somewhat will increase in price, even if the impact may be less than expected, as wafers account for a small share of the cost of chip production.The prices of video cards have already risen sharply in the course of December last year and January 2018, including due to shortages of memory chips and the increased popularity of mining cryptocurrencies.

In the eleven years leading up to 2017, silicon wafer prices had been falling continuously, Hardware.info reported in early 2017. Chip manufacturers are ramping up production year after year to meet the increasing demand for chips. However, according to consultancy TechCet, the average price is now too low in relation to the investment required to expand the production capacity of 300mm wafers. Together with the shortages, that would be the reason for the price increases.

GlobalWafers is the third largest producer of silicon wafers for chip making and has a market share of approximately 17 percent. The rest of the market is dominated by two other major players, Sumco and Shin-Etsu Handotai. Last November, the Korean ET News reported that Sumco expects prices for 300m wafers to rise by 20 percent in 2018 and that a further 20 percent price increase will be added in 2019.