SUMCO will 2018 up 12-inch silicon wafer price 20%

Backgrounder SUMCO, one of the world's largest producers of silicon wafers, announced that it would raise the price of 12-inch silicon wafers by 20% in 2018 and raise prices again in 2019, with CEO Hashimoto Mayuki acknowledging the news to the media SUMCO is responsible for about 60% of the world's silicon wafer supply.

The main reason for the rise in price of silicon wafers is the shortage of 12-inch 300-mm silicon wafers, which are mainly used to manufacture processors, graphics cards and memory (RAM). SUMCO estimates that by 2020, The demand for the wafer will grow to 6.6 million pieces per month.

Xu Xiulan, chairman of Taiwanese manufacturer UniversalWorld, told shareholders this week that the company will raise its silicon wafer price by 20% this year.

However, the rise in silicon wafer prices may be bad news for players who like to assemble their own computers. The price of GPU has risen a lot due to the mining demand of cryptocurrencies, but the price is expected to continue rising in the current situation .

According to SEMI SMG (Silicon Manufacturers Group) in its annual analysis of the silicon industry report pointed out that in 2017 the global silicon shipments area compared to 2016 increased by 10%, the global silicon revenue increased by 21%, exceeding the level of 2016.

Wafer shipments in 2017 were 11.81 billion square inches (MSI), up from the market high of 10.738 billion square inches in 2016. Revenues totaled 8.71 billion U.S. dollars, up 21% from the 7.21 billion announced in 2016.