📌 Silicon Wafer Price Hike Reflects the Broadening of the Foundry Recovery
Silicon wafer prices are reportedly set to rise by 10% across the board, covering 6-inch, 8-inch, and 12-inch products. This is the first relatively substantial price increase in more than three years. What merits attention is not only the potential improvement in materials makers’ revenue, but also that the excess supply previously built up in end markets appears to be being absorbed by AI demand.
For materials prices to rise, downstream purchasing and production scheduling usually need to cooperate. Data from the foundry segment provides this context: the industry’s annualized scale reportedly rose from nearly USD 220 billion in 2Q26 to more than USD 245 billion in 3Q26, while capacity utilization also recovered from 85% to 90%. Mature-process fabs outside China followed the rebound, indicating that the improvement is not occurring only in the most advanced processes.
However, the gains from the recovery remain uneven. TSMC, with a 73.8% revenue share, captured 90% of the industry’s USD 30.1 billion gross profit pool. This means that materials price increases and a recovery in mature-process utilization can improve revenue and cash-flow expectations across a broader supply chain, yet are still insufficient to change the pattern of profits being highly concentrated among the leaders.
What needs to be verified next is whether utilization can continue rising, and whether end demand can absorb the price recovery. If neither can be sustained, the price increase on the materials side will look more like a temporary supply-demand adjustment; if they can continue, the improvement in the semiconductor cycle may then be transmitted further from AI-driven advanced demand to manufacturing and materials.
▌ Sources