Second quarter silicon wafer shipments reach all-time quarterly high

Milpitas, CA. Reaching their highest recorded quarterly level ever on robust demand, worldwide silicon wafer area shipments rose 2.5% in the second quarter of 2018 to 3,160 million square inches from 3,084 million square inches the previous quarter, according to the SEMI Silicon Manufacturers Group (SMG) in its quarterly analysis of the silicon wafer industry. New quarterly total area shipments are 6.1% higher than second quarter 2017 shipments.

“The second calendar quarter of the year typically enjoys a volume increase over the first quarter,” said Neil Weaver, chairman, SEMI SMG, and director, Product Development and Applications Engineering of Shin Etsu Handotai America. “This quarter is no exception. Continued solid demand is driving record wafer volume shipments.”

Silicon* Area Shipment Trends

All data cited in this release includes polished silicon wafers, including virgin test wafers and epitaxial silicon wafers, as well as nonpolished silicon wafers shipped by the wafer manufacturers to end users.

The Silicon Manufacturing Group (SMG) (http://www.semi.org/en/silicon-manufacturers-group-smg) is a sub-committee of the SEMI Electronic Materials Group (EMG) (http://www.semi.org/en/about-emg) and is open to SEMI members involved in manufacturing polycrystalline silicon, monocrystalline silicon, or silicon wafers (for example, as cut, polished, epi, etc.). The purpose of the group is to facilitate collective efforts on issues related to the silicon industry including the development of market information and statistics about the silicon industry and the semiconductor market.