Wednesday, November 25th 2020
Wafer Prices Rising by Up to 40% in 2021: Report
Semiconductor foundries across the board are preparing to raise price quotes of their 8-inch wafers from 2021. A DigiTimes report sheds light on various foundry companies, including UMC (United Microelectronics), Global Foundries, and Vanguard International Semiconductor (VIS) have raised their 8-inch foundry quotes by 10-15% in Q4-2020, with the quotes set to rise by another 20-40% in 2021. Foundries don't tend to use flat pricing, and instead rely on quotes specific to the size and design requirements of an order (by a fabless chip designer).
The foundry industry operates broadly on silicon fabrication nodes and wafer sizes. This article by Telescope Magazine provides insights into the typical use-cases for each wafer size. Although pertaining strictly to pricing of 8-inch (200 mm) wafers, an impending price-rise across the semiconductor industry can be extrapolated on the basis on significant labor cost increases. TSMC is planning to implement a 20% pay hike for its personnel in 2021.
Source:
DigiTimes
The foundry industry operates broadly on silicon fabrication nodes and wafer sizes. This article by Telescope Magazine provides insights into the typical use-cases for each wafer size. Although pertaining strictly to pricing of 8-inch (200 mm) wafers, an impending price-rise across the semiconductor industry can be extrapolated on the basis on significant labor cost increases. TSMC is planning to implement a 20% pay hike for its personnel in 2021.
31 Comments on Wafer Prices Rising by Up to 40% in 2021: Report
450mm wafers are being planned or ramped up. This might play a part in prices of smaller wafers.
Companies don't exist to please you or me with cheaper and better products. They exist to make money and surely seems like they do, and "better and cheaper products" part is coincidental to it. If people give it to them even without it being the case...
Toss a coin to your foundry..........
This could be the once predicted inflection point where the smaller nodes become unviable economically. Prices will go up until demand drops.
14nm forever baby!
So no, it's not capitalism you thank, it's democratic socialism. If it weren't for regulatory bodies stepping in on multiple occasions you would still would be running dial up over your bell monopoly phone line and Intel, monitor manufacturers, and RAM manufacturers would either still be maintaining a monopoly or fixing prices.
If there's one thing I thank, it's that no 1st world country is dumb enough to implement capitalism without a significant mix of other types of government and economic systems to cover it's glaring flaws.
A Chemist and a Physicist founded Intel.
AMD was founded by some pissed off Fairchild Semi employees.
Amazon was some software engineers working out of a dingy office in a red light district. They were afraid Sears was going to crush them in courts. Might want to watch this video from 1999 for perspective.
From the video, Bezos in his office in 1999:
But I see the irony. President of United States - actor (Rory) :)