Wafer foundry mature process greatly reduces prices, up to 10%

The semiconductor market continues to be weak, and IC design factories have been in a short period of time. Many upstream foundry manufacturers have been willing to share the difficulties, and have gradually lowered their prices in the second half of this year. As next year is about to enter, more IC design companies have confirmed that in the first quarter of next year, wafer foundries have received price cuts for mature processes. The range varies from single-digit to double-digit percentages depending on the product and process node. .

IC design manufacturers have gradually adjusted their inventories from the second quarter to this quarter, and the overall industry's pursuit of inventory reduction is expected to continue into next year. In order to reduce inventory, it depends on the removal of goods from the downstream of the supply chain. However, in the current situation of weak sales in the terminal market, IC design factories can only turn to upstream wafer foundries to cut orders.

Seeing that the market conditions are not good and demand is weakening, the wave of wafer foundries cutting prices to retain customer orders has gradually spread from Chinese factories to Taiwanese factories. Industry insiders pointed out that a small number of wafer foundries have cut prices for mature manufacturing processes since the third quarter. For IC design manufacturers, it is necessary to carefully calculate the cost of each IC from the wafer casting price and sell it to customers. If you will lose money, you would rather not place an order to cast a film. Therefore, the two sides started a tug-of-war, bargaining and negotiating that the production price of this season will continue to decrease.

Looking forward to next year, IC design companies mentioned that they are negotiating new prices with wafer foundries, and it seems that the capacity utilization rate of some foundries will further decrease. Everyone's inventory level is still high, and the quantity that can be placed is still not much, but now the situation has turned to a buyer's market.

Some IC design manufacturers revealed that TSMC still maintains its attitude of raising prices next year, and another wafer foundry still has good results in the 28/40nm process, so it is not easy to revise its quotation. At the same time, however, more than two foundries are willing to cut prices, ranging from single-digit to double-digit percentages, and some of them require customers to commit to a certain order quantity.

In addition, although other IC design factories have not yet negotiated the production price in the first quarter of next year, it is estimated that the current trend of wafer foundry price reduction will not stop. Even if the prices of some wafer foundries do not seem to be lowered, they will privately provide preferential plans for individual customers. After the production volume reaches a certain amount, subsequent productions can be given price reductions. However, high-level executives in the IC design industry also admitted frankly that even if the current casting price has been revised down, it still has not yet returned to the level before the outbreak.