Halfway through 2026, the semiconductor market has completely overturned practitioners’ conventional expectations. Many purchasers and terminal manufacturers still hold a wait-and-see attitude for price declines, expecting market corrections and low-cost stock procurement. However, the real market trend has delivered a clear verdict: the window for price cuts has been fully closed, a new round of widespread shortages and price hikes is escalating across the industry, and the upward trend of the semiconductor market in the second half of 2026 is firmly established with no possibility of reversal.

Reviewing the industry performance in the first half of the year, chip prices have not declined, inventory surpluses are non-existent, and delivery cycles have not shortened. Instead, the market features broader price hikes, worsening shortages, and continuously extended lead times. From upstream wafer foundry and silicon wafer materials, to midstream memory, analog, power, and MCU chips, and further to downstream automotive-grade, industrial control, and consumer electronics sectors, price increases have evolved from partial fluctuations of individual categories into a definitive trend across the entire industrial chain.

Major wafer fabs and leading manufacturers have laid solid groundwork for the second-half market trend. UMC, a leading foundry, officially announced a wafer manufacturing price hike effective July 2026, with an increase of 10%-15% for 8-inch mature processes and 5%-10% for mid-to-low-end 12-inch processes, marking an overall rise in mature production capacity prices. As the core production capacity for industrial control, consumer, and new energy equipment, the price increase of 8-inch wafers has directly driven up the overall costs of downstream essential components such as general-purpose chips, power devices, and MCUs, making price hikes for terminal materials inevitable.

Memory chips have become the core driving force of this round of price surges, recording an unexpected skyrocketing performance. According to data from authoritative industry institution TrendForce, DRAM contract prices surged 58%-63% month-on-month in Q2 2026, while NAND Flash prices rose by 70%-75%, confirming a clear full-year upward trend. Multiple institutions predict that memory chip prices will keep rising quarter by quarter in the second half of the year with steady growth in Q3 and Q4 and no room for correction. The prices of some popular memory categories have exceeded 100% growth within the year.

Many market players still hold out hope, wondering whether the current boom is a short-term speculation and if prices will drop after the peak season. The answer is negative. This round of semiconductor price hikes is by no means a temporary inventory fluctuation as seen in previous years. Instead, it is a long-term industrial trend driven by three overlapping factors: explosive demand growth, production capacity bottlenecks, and rising costs, locking in a sustained upward market rhythm for the second half of the year.

On the demand side, AI computing power has become the biggest incremental engine, completely reshaping the semiconductor supply and demand landscape. The iteration of large AI models, deployment of computing power clusters, and mass production of AI servers have triggered a blowout in demand for high-end chips, high-bandwidth memory, and power management chips. Unlike traditional terminals, AI equipment doubles the consumption of semiconductor components, continuously absorbing global production capacity and exhausting the industry’s existing supply. Meanwhile, the booming development of new energy vehicles, industrial automation, and IoT has steadily boosted downstream terminal orders, prompting enterprises to launch centralized inventory replenishment and further exacerbating material shortages.

Structural rigidities on the supply side make the shortage and price hike trend irreversible. Currently, the utilization rate of mainstream global wafer production capacity remains above 95%, with mature process capacity running at full load all year round and orders of leading manufacturers scheduled until the end of the year. More importantly, semiconductor capacity expansion involves a long cycle of 2 to 3 years, with equipment procurement, factory construction, and capacity ramp-up unable to be completed in a short time. From 2026 to 2027, new global chip production capacity will fail to match the explosively growing market demand. Coupled with the continuous rise in upstream raw material and foundry costs, the cost floor of chips has moved upward, completely eliminating the possibility of price cuts.

It is worth noting that the market has bid farewell to the old cycle of universal ups and downs, showing obvious structural prosperity. Low-end general-purpose chips are gradually phased out amid fierce competition, while high-value-added and high-reliability categories including automotive-grade, industrial control, AI computing, power semiconductors, and high-end memory remain in persistent shortage with steady price increases and dwindling supply. Enterprises choosing to wait and see will not only fail to obtain low-cost goods but also face passive dilemmas such as stock shortages, doubled delivery cycles, and high-cost rush procurement.

In the current semiconductor market, a crucial mindset update is imperative: the era of low prices has ended completely, and stable supply is far more important than temporary low costs.

The past strategy of purchasing low-priced inventory and waiting for market dips has become completely invalid in 2026. Sustained price hikes, long-term shortages, and extended lead times will be the industry norm in the second half of the year. For terminal enterprises and purchasers, blind hesitation will only lead to missed inventory opportunities, production suspensions, and order delays. Proactively locking in high-quality supplies, stabilizing the supply chain, and arranging reasonable inventory reserves are the optimal solutions to hedge market fluctuations and control cost risks.

The general trend is irreversible and waits for no one. The semiconductor price hike trend for the second half of 2026 is set in stone, with no downward correction expected but only continuous growth. Abandoning wait-and-see attitudes, taking proactive layout actions, and securing stable production capacity and high-quality materials will help enterprises stabilize production, seize orders, avoid risks, and capture the long-term dividends of the booming semiconductor industry cycle.