UMC moving wafer prices up

United Microelectronics Corp. is telling customers it will raise wafer prices in the second half of 2026 as demand tightens and costs climb. (digitimes.com) The Taiwan-based contract chipmaker said demand for logic and memory-related applications has stayed resilient across its product mix, while raw materials, energy and logistics have become more expensive. UMC said the price adjustment is meant to support manufacturing efficiency and continued investment in technology and capacity. (wccftech.com) TrendForce, citing TechNews and earlier Liberty Times reporting, said the exact increase has not been disclosed, though a roughly 10% hike had been reported as a possibility as early as July 2026. UMC has not publicly confirmed a percentage in its own materials. (trendforce.com) A wafer is the round silicon base used to make chips, and foundries like UMC sell manufacturing capacity on those wafers to chip designers. When wafer prices rise, the increase can flow through to companies that buy mature-node chips for phones, cars, industrial gear and networking hardware. (umc.com) UMC is the world’s No. 2 pure-play foundry by revenue after Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. in many industry tallies, but it competes mostly in older, widely used process technologies such as 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer production rather than the leading-edge nodes used for the most advanced artificial-intelligence processors. UMC’s 22nm and 28nm offerings target communications, automotive, internet-of-things and system-on-chip designs. (trendforce.com) (umc.com 1) (umc.com 2) That part of the market has been uneven since the post-pandemic chip shortage faded, with mature-node fabs facing periods of softer utilization and heavier price competition. In January, UMC said its first-quarter 2026 wafer shipments and average selling prices would be flat from the fourth quarter of 2025, with capacity utilization in the mid-70% range. (benzinga.com) UMC has also been adding capacity in Singapore, where it opened a new fab facility in April 2025 and said the first phase would start volume production in 2026. The company said that expansion would lift its total Singapore capacity to more than 1 million wafers a year. (umc.com) The timing matters because foundries had spent much of the past year talking about cost discipline and selective pricing after a long correction in legacy chips. Reports in late 2025 said UMC had pushed suppliers for lower prices even as it tried to defend margins in mature-node manufacturing. (trendforce.com) (jakotaindex.com) For customers, the message is narrower than a broad chip shortage replay: UMC is signaling firmer pricing where its own mix is tightening, not a blanket industrywide squeeze across every node. The next public checkpoint is UMC’s first-quarter 2026 earnings release, which investor-tracking services list for April 29, 2026. (digitimes.com) (tipranks.com)