Strong earthquakes in Japan have caused many key raw materials and components to face out-of-stock risks. Pressure on price increases is just around the corner. Naked wafers are one of them. According to estimates of Chen Huiming, head of Japan's Daiwa Securities' Asian technology industry research department, on the 28th. The 12-inch bare wafer price will have more than 15% upside from the third quarter.

Chen Huiming pointed out that since the current stock-out warnings have not been lifted, the upstream raw material or component manufacturers have chosen to announce price increases at this point in time, which will be considered by the industry as “immoral”. However, price increase pressure is there, and it is only time to announce price increases. Sooner or later.

In fact, the raw materials for the shortage of 12-inch wafers are not only bare wafers, but also include glass fiber, polishing slurry, and quartz, which may become uncertain factors in wafer manufacturing in the future.

Chen Huiming pointed out that Japan's Shin-Etsu Semiconductor (SEF) plant accounts for about 15 to 20% of the world's 12-inch bare wafers. According to the current timetable for resumption of work, the risk of out-of-stock in the future is still quite large.

If the upstream raw material bare wafer price increases by 15%, it will inevitably affect the cost structure of the downstream manufacturers. According to Chen Huiming’s estimation, the depreciation accounted for approximately 50% of the COGS structure of the foundry's merchants. Naked wafers account for about 20% of the remaining 50%, so the price pressure is about 2-3%.

Chen Huiming believes that if the bare wafers increase, the most unfavorable is probably the IC design company, and the gross profit margin will be affected. On the whole, the impact of the shortage of parts and components on TSMC and Liye, which have strong bargaining power in the industrial chain, will be affected. It is relatively small, and the pressure on SMIC and Ralink is relatively large.