Price increases are spreading not only in memory semiconductors but also in non-memory. After expanded investment in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure drove up DRAM and NAND flash prices, supply disruptions and price hikes have recently emerged in analog chips, power semiconductors, communications chips, and central processing units (CPU). The industry sees this as the phase where AI-driven demand shocks are transferring across the entire semiconductor ecosystem.
According to the industry on the 30th, semiconductor prices are rising across sectors including PCs, automobiles, and servers. Intel and AMD, the twin pillars of PC central processing units (CPU), are reportedly set to raise prices, and semiconductor corporations in diverse fields such as automotive, power, and communications are hiking prices one after another.
Market research firm TrendForce said Netherlands-based NXP, an automotive and industrial semiconductor corporation, is set to start raising prices next month. Texas Instruments (TI) and Infineon Technologies AG have joined this price hike trend. STMicroelectronics, dubbed Europe's largest "semiconductor department store," also appears poised to push through price increases. The pattern is clear: the price surge that began in memory is spreading to analog and Power Semiconductor.
The prevailing view is that these semiconductor price hikes stem from steady vehicle and industrial demand, while a significant portion of mature semiconductor nodes mass-produced by TSMC and Samsung Electronics are being diverted to AI and data centers, creating bottlenecks in chip production. As AI server expansions lift demand for power management semiconductors and peripheral chips, efforts to pass higher costs on to prices are strengthening.
A representative at a major domestic foundry said, "Given current foundry (contract chip manufacturing) production trends and contract prices, there is a strong chance that price adjustments will continue, centered on power management semiconductors, industrial analog components, and some power switch product lines."
Communications chips and networking components are no exception. Broadcom recently said that a surge in demand for AI chips and networking has pushed the production capacity of its key manufacturing partner TSMC into a bottleneck. Considering that lead times for optical communication components such as lasers and printed circuit boards (PCB) are stretching from firm orders to months, procurement burdens for high-performance chips and consolidation components for networks also appear to be growing. Even if communications chips are not traded at standard prices like memory, actual contract unit prices and supply terms are likely to tighten.
CPUs are not free from upward price pressure. According to recent reports from TrendForce and Tom's Hardware, Intel and AMD are said to be pushing to raise CPU prices by an average of 10%–15% due to expanding AI demand and supply constraints. Some PC manufacturers' lead times (the time from order to delivery) are reportedly stretching from the previous 1–2 weeks to as long as six months. If CPUs, the general-purpose compute chips, join the price hike ranks, expectations will strengthen that the semiconductor price uptrend is spreading beyond memory to system semiconductors more broadly.