Price of silicon wafer rising sharply

[Coaxialgamer]

26 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

this is why investors need to not be part of a corporate hierarchy.

 

It's always investors screwing over consumers from micro-transaction loot boxes to now price gauging silicon wafer customers and consumers.

i kind of agree with you on that one . It's coming to a point where they are interfering with the actual company and their work , with the only goal to increase the bottom line . Long term sustainability and reputation be damned.

[Dissitesuxba11s]

Just now, MyName13 said:

I thought big semiconductor companies make wafers by themselves.

Mostly, but they have to get the raw materials from somewhere and that increased.

[AlTech]

1 minute ago, Coaxialgamer said:

i kind of agree with you on that one . It's coming to a point where they are interfering with the actual company and their work , with the only goal to increase the bottom line . Long term sustainability and reputation be damned.

Yeah and as soon as it looks like the company is gonna have long term impacts then they sell their shares and bam.

[pyrojoe34]

1 hour ago, Prysin said:

quite a bit more. With such an increase, i expect DRAM in particular to rise by another 30-50% in 2018 over todays prices... CPUs will have a bit less dramatic bump. GPUs, especially big monolithic designs like nvidias Titan, Tesla, Quadro and 1080Ti will definetively increase by another 30-50$ base MSRP if not more

Where did you get these estimations from? You have to know how much the raw silicon contributes to the total cost of a product before knowing the effect. If the silicon is only like 1% of the total cost of a chip then the cost of manufacturing increase due to a 20% increase in wafer cost will only be like 0.2% which is almost negligible to the end user. I don't know what the contribution of the cost of silicon is to the final product but I doubt it's as high as you imply, this may only result in very minor price changes overall.

[Prysin]

20 minutes ago, Swatson said:

Is price fixing still illegal when it's done by companies in different countries, how does one even try to fight against that....

you can't

[Prysin]

6 minutes ago, Dissitesuxba11s said:

Conspiracy Theorist in Me: You know it might just be coincidence that you (with that profile pic) reported this, but Trump just got back from his Asia trip. Maybe something went down that rocked the material pricing.

this has been going on for some while. The prices increased 20% this year, compared to Q4 last year. ANd will continue to do so.

 

If anything, blame china and mobile.

[WereCat]

Soo... time to buy RAM while it is still "cheap"? Resell next year for profit?

[MyName13]

8 minutes ago, Dissitesuxba11s said:

Mostly, but they have to get the raw materials from somewhere and that increased.

I see that wafers are mentioned, not raw materials.

[Dissitesuxba11s]

10 minutes ago, MyName13 said:

I see that wafers are mentioned, not raw materials.

Just a bit of speculation from my end.

[Egg-Roll]

1 hour ago, Swatson said:

Is price fixing still illegal when it's done by companies in different countries, how does one even try to fight against that....

Ban all imports from said companies, and those who import it could face heavy fines if caught (ultimately smuggling).

 

Think of it like Blood Diamonds

 

What i have read here It sounds very much like the common rock called a Diamond... Those things are very useless...

[michaelocarroll007]

1 hour ago, Dylanc1500 said:

I honestly couldn't tell you. I assume they could halt import for not conforming to U.S. Law but I'm not well versed in import laws and sanctions. One of the mods was pretty knowledgable in this area but I don't remember whom.

Wouldnt that just make them even more expensive? 

[pyrojoe34]

46 minutes ago, WereCat said:

Soo... time to buy RAM while it is still "cheap"? Resell next year for profit?

I doubt it, RAM right now is super inflated already and will probably drop again once the market stabilizes. I don't know how much the cost of raw silicon contributes to chip price but I doubt it's a massive amount. Right now seems like the worst time to buy RAM. 18mo ago I bought a 4x8GB DDR4 kit for $120 which is now selling for $360, it's definitely not a good time to buy.

[Dylanc1500]

11 minutes ago, michaelocarroll007 said:

Wouldnt that just make them even more expensive? 

Possibly, depends on how it's handled. If it causes them to drop pricing back down or increase production then no. If they refuse and drop supply then yes it would most likely increase cost, but that is still dependent on all the different wafer manufacturers.

 

Like I said I'm not well versed on import laws and sanctions so I don't know what they can do. It was just one option. It's all hypothetical though so it has no weight to it. We will see what happens, if anything.

[dizmo]

Surprise, we're putting electronics into more things than ever and they're having trouble keeping up? You don't say! All this is going to take is increased production, both in the harvesting of raw resources and the production of wafers. This of course takes time, usually you have to have a couple years of sustained demand before a company will invest a great deal of money into infrastructure. You don't spend billions of dollars on factories in a knee jerk "oh wow there's been huge demand these past couple months!"

3 hours ago, pyrojoe34 said:

Yea but what fraction of the final cost is the raw silicon? If it takes 1$ worth of silicon for a $300 CPU then a 20% increase is only $0.20... not a huge factor.

A 300mm wafer is ~$400.

The yield per wafer is apparently a guarded number, AMD gets around 150 per 200mm wafer? So for sake of a number we'll say a 300mm wafer gets 225 (could be more). So ~120 CPUs (graphics is a separate die). $3.33 per CPU, for a price increase of $0.66. Even at a multiple of 10, it's a $6.60 increase. Or a nice coffee.

Very, very rough numbers, but still. I didn't want to look that much into it

 

People are over reacting. Silicone, as you've said, is a small part of the process. This doesn't increase the greater costs; shipping, distribution, marketing, packaging, etc.

3 hours ago, Prysin said:

quite a bit more. With such an increase, i expect DRAM in particular to rise by another 30-50% in 2018 over todays prices... CPUs will have a bit less dramatic bump. GPUs, especially big monolithic designs like nvidias Titan, Tesla, Quadro and 1080Ti will definetively increase by another 30-50$ base MSRP if not more

Samsungs investments into increased memory production should help with that greatly. I don't think RAM will go up that much. Gamers Nexus had a news article saying there will be a surplus of RAM, though I didn't watch the video.

[Prysin]

 

4 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Surprise, we're putting electronics into more things than ever and they're having trouble keeping up? You don't say! All this is going to take is increased production, both in the harvesting of raw resources and the production of wafers. This of course takes time, usually you have to have a couple years of sustained demand before a company will invest a great deal of money into infrastructure. You don't spend billions of dollars on factories in a knee jerk "oh wow there's been huge demand these past couple months!"

A 300mm wafer is ~$400.

The yield per wafer is apparently a guarded number, AMD gets around 150 per 200mm wafer? So for sake of a number we'll say a 300mm wafer gets 225 (could be more). So ~120 CPUs (graphics is a separate die). $3.33 per CPU, for a price increase of $0.66. Even at a multiple of 10, it's a $6.60 increase. Or a nice coffee.

Very, very rough numbers, but still. I didn't want to look that much into it

 

People are over reacting. Silicone, as you've said, is a small part of the process. This doesn't increase the greater costs; shipping, distribution, marketing, packaging, etc.

Samsungs investments into increased memory production should help with that greatly. I don't think RAM will go up that much. Gamers Nexus had a news article saying there will be a surplus of RAM, though I didn't watch the video.

ofcourse it will.

 

If you had read my OP, you'd understand that THEY ARENT WILLING TO INCREASE PRODUCTION IN ORDER TO MAINTAIN HIGHER PRICES. HIGHER SUPPLY = LOWER PRICE.....

 

This is 2009-2014 oil prices all over again.

 

If wafer production remains the same, and memory production increase, that means you need to buy more wafers at higher prices (and everyone wants wafers). So thus the competition further increases the cost of wafers.

Thus memory prices increase, as the "raw material", aka wafers, is in artificial short supply

[dizmo]

4 minutes ago, Prysin said:

ofcourse it will.

If you had read my OP, you'd understand that THEY ARENT WILLING TO INCREASE PRODUCTION IN ORDER TO MAINTAIN HIGHER PRICES. HIGHER SUPPLY = LOWER PRICE.....

Sooo you're just ignoring the fact that they're currently building 2 NAND factories, investing over $18,000,000,000?

[Prysin]

On 14/11/2017 at 7:10 PM, dizmo said:

Sooo you're just ignoring the fact that they're currently building 2 NAND factories, investing over $18,000,000,000?

what does it matter if they build NAND factories

Spoiler

 

IF

 

THEY

 

HAVE

 

NO

 

FUCKING

 

CHEAP

 

WAFERS

 

TO

 

PUT

 

INTO

 

THE

 

NAND

 

FACTORY

 

the WAFER MANUFACTURERS are a "cartel". They have a wink wink nod nod agreement to HOLD BACK PRODUCTION, so they can INFLATE PRICES.

Spoiler

IF

 

WAFERS

 

INCREASE

 

IN

 

PRICE

 

THEN

 

ANY

 

PRODUCT

 

BASED

 

ON

 

WAFERS

 

MUST

 

INCREASE

 

IN

 

PRICE

 

UNLESS

 

YOU

 

WANT

 

TO

 

LOSE

 

MONEY

 

 

Edited November 16, 2017 by TheRandomness

[AlwaysFSX]

There's literally no reason to do that other than "We want to charge you more."

 

Fuckers.

[Prysin]

Just now, AlwaysFSX said:

There's literally no reason to do that other than "We want to charge you more."

 

Fuckers.

exactly, and since they are a collection of multi national companies, there is almost no way to stop them

[AlwaysFSX]

Just now, Prysin said:

exactly, and since they are a collection of multi national companies, there is almost no way to stop them

Could have manufacturing created in someplace like the US but I guarantee you that'll be as expensive, if not more.

[Prysin]

Just now, AlwaysFSX said:

Could have manufacturing created in someplace like the US but I guarantee you that'll be as expensive, if not more.

and the US company will just silently join the "wink wink nod nod" agreement. Aslong as there is no direct evidence of "collusion", US gov couldnt do shit about it7

[AlwaysFSX]

Just now, Prysin said:

and the US company will just silently join the "wink wink nod nod" agreement. Aslong as there is no direct evidence of "collusion", US gov couldnt do shit about it7

It's infuriating.

[Prysin]

Just now, AlwaysFSX said:

It's infuriating.

on the other side, gov taking over production by force and introducing price control would brutally murder the whole silicon industry

[AlwaysFSX]

3 minutes ago, Prysin said:

on the other side, gov taking over production by force and introducing price control would brutally murder the whole silicon industry

Depends, could do cost of production + 3% profit. Wouldn't completely kill it.

[Orangeator]

9 minutes ago, Prysin said:

US gov couldnt do shit about it7

Well, actually the U.S. government very much so could. Technically they could just ban the import of silicon and bend manufactures arm's to lower the price. And then there wouldn't be a god damn thing the companies could do, that would literally bankrupt them. Buuuttttttt the chances of that happening are quite literally not there.

 

Edit: Hell I am pretty sure the president could sign an executive order banning the purchase of it from other countries which would seriously hurt them, even though it would be overturned, you are talking a week or two (a week or two of no income, for a business, would hurt their earning reports, and lose investors, tanking their stock) before anything is done to over turn it.