"Global silicon wafer shipments in the third quarter increased by 13% compared to the previous year."

SEMI, an industry association representing the global electronics industry supply chain, announced on the 9th that global silicon wafer shipments in the third quarter of this year reached 3.756 billion square inches.

This is a 13.4% increase compared to the shipment volume of 3.313 billion square inches in the same period last year.

Compared to the previous quarter's shipments of 3.573 billion square inches, it increased 5.1%.

“Shipments increased thanks to solid artificial intelligence (AI)-related demand and improving industrial demand,” said Masatsugu Miura, chairman of SEMI Silicon Manufacturers Group (SMG), a subcommittee of SEMI Electronic Materials Group.

He continued, “AI-related demand has continued to expand beyond cutting-edge logic and memory to power semiconductors and photonics (photonic technology),” and added, “Industrial demand has also expanded thanks to demand in the fields of power supplies for robotics and AI servers and improved demand for general-purpose industrial semiconductors.”

Silicon wafers are a key basic material used to manufacture most semiconductors.

It is produced with a diameter of up to 300 mm and is used as a substrate material for most semiconductors.