Silicon Wafer Market and Japanese Makers
Worldwide silicon wafer shipments rose 5.8% to 12,973 million square inches in 2025, while revenue slipped to $11.4 billion, according to SEMI. Japan's Shin-Etsu Chemical and SUMCO are the two largest wafer makers.
- 2025 shipments12,973 MSI
- 2025 revenue$11.4bn
- 2029 forecast17,034 MSI
Shipments and forecast
SEMI measures wafer demand by area, in million square inches (MSI) of polished and epitaxial silicon wafers shipped to chipmakers. In 2025, shipments grew on demand for epitaxial wafers for advanced logic and polished wafers for high-bandwidth memory (HBM), while revenue softened because demand and prices for traditional applications had not yet recovered.
In October 2026 SEMI forecast 11.8% growth in 2026 and new records every year from 2027 to 2029, led by AI-related demand for logic and memory wafers and a recovery in mature-node utilization.
Japan's position
Two Japanese companies lead wafer supply: Shin-Etsu Chemical, through its subsidiary Shin-Etsu Handotai, and SUMCO. The chairman of SEMI's Silicon Manufacturers Group, quoted in the 2025 results, is a SUMCO executive. Silicon wafers are one of the six items in METI's figure for key semiconductor materials, where Japanese suppliers hold about 48% of the world market.
- Japan 48%
- Taiwan 16%
- South Korea 13%
- Europe, Middle East & Africa 10%
- United States 9%
- China 3%
SUMCO's plants are mostly in Kyushu and Shin-Etsu's are spread across Fukui, Niigata, Gunma and Fukushima; see regions. For other materials, see semiconductor materials where Japan leads.
Sources
Related calculators
- Die per wafer (DPW) calculator
- Wafer weight, area and thickness calculator
- Miller index, d-spacing and plane angle calculator
- Wafer capacity converter (8-inch and 12-inch equivalent)
- Carrier mobility, diffusion coefficient and diffusion length calculator (silicon)
- Oxygen concentration in silicon (Oi) converter
Japan's semiconductor industry in numbers
Last updated: October 22, 2026