Worldwide shipments of silicon wafers soar to record high

According to Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International, the global trade association of semiconductor manufacturers, a record 20.4 billion square centimeters of wafers were shipped in the past quarter.

In the same quarter a year earlier, this amount was 19.2 billion square centimeters. The current 20.4 billion cm² means an increase of more than six percent. In the first quarter of 2018, this figure was 19.9 billion square centimetres. According to Semi, there is a lot of demand worldwide and the second quarter is generally better than the first quarter.

In practice, this number of 20.4 billion square centimeters amounts to approximately 29 million 300 mm wafers, or the 12 “wafers. These are used, for example, for the production of processors, graphics chips and dram.

Earlier this year, GlobalWafers CEO Doris Hsu said silicon prices will rise by 20 percent this year. And another wafer producer, Sumco, also mentioned this percentage. According to the CEO, shortages will mainly arise in the 300mm wafers. Whether this will lead to an automatic increase in the prices of computer components is not clear, because wafers account for a small share of the costs of chip production.