South Korean SK Siltron and Japanese SUMCO revealed they plan to increase 300mm wafer pricing by 20 percent year-over-year this quarter. The companies expects silicon wafer prices will continue to rise in 2019 as demand keeps rising.
SUMCO CEO Hashimoto Mayuki predicted global demand for 300mm silicon wafers will soar to 6.6 million units per month in 2020, versus current global production capacity of 5.6 million wafers per month.
"We are also planning to increase price of silicon wafer by 20% in 2018." said CEO Hashimoto Mayuki of SUMCO. "Price of silicon wafer will continue to rise in 2019." Still according to the CEO, global demand for 300 mm silicon wafers for semiconductor production is currently 5.6 million units per month - SUMCO is estimating the global demand in 2020 to reach 6.6 million units per month. SUMCO, on its part, is planning to increase monthly output of 300 mm silicon wafers by 110,000 units in 2019. German company Siltronic is also planning to increase its monthly output, though by a slightly lesser 70,000 units.How much this will impact the pricing of popular PC components is unknown. The cost of a blank wafer is relatively small so the impact down the line may not be that huge.