According to relevant reports, Japanese silicon wafer supplier Sumco plans to increase long-term contract prices for foundries by about 30% between 2022 and 2024.

According to the report, global silicon wafer shipments in 2021 will reach a record high, with a year-on-year increase of 14%, and since the end of 2021, the spot price of silicon wafers has been rising, but Sumco still decided to increase the long-term customers who account for the majority of revenue. s price.

Sumco chairman and chief executive Mayuki Hashimoto said it was "far from meeting demand". The company also decided to invest 350 billion yen (about 2.6 billion U.S. dollars) to build new factories in Japan and Taiwan to increase production capacity.

Another Japanese supplier of semiconductor materials, Showa Denko, also raised the price of high-purity gas needed for chip manufacturing by more than 20 percent from January, citing "increasing natural gas prices and transportation costs."

Prior to this, Shin-Etsu Chemical's subsidiary Shin-Etsu Polymer also raised the price of wafer boxes by 20%; Sumitomo Bakelite, a major Japanese semiconductor packaging material manufacturer, raised the price of packaging adhesives by about 20% from 2021.

Goldman Sachs analyst Atsushi Ikeda said semiconductor makers "don't even count prices to ensure demand, especially silicon wafers," which also led to more price hikes.

It is understood that the intensification of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is pushing up the cost of semiconductor materials, because Russia and Ukraine are both suppliers of rare gases and metals. Among them, Ukraine is a major supplier of neon gas for semiconductor manufacturing, where prices have risen in anticipation of tight supplies.