Samsung has raised wafer foundry order prices, with advanced process nodes seeing increases of up to 15%.

Latest reports indicate that Samsung Electronics has raised prices for new orders in some advanced process wafer foundry services by up to 15%.

Sources familiar with the matter revealed that Samsung increased prices for chips produced using the 4-nanometer process, known as SF4, in July, with prices rising 10% to 15% compared to the previous month.

Two informed sources stated that Samsung cannot fulfill all orders because the company needs to provide capacity for U.S. clients while also reserving some capacity for its own chip production.

A person familiar with Samsung's operations said that the SF4 production line at Samsung's Pyeongtaek plant in South Korea has been running at full capacity since late last year.

The line produces logic chips for clients including Qualcomm and also manufactures base dies used in Samsung's multi-layer high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips.

Additionally, prices for Samsung's 5-nanometer SF5 process wafers have risen 10% to 15%, while prices for the older 8-nanometer process have increased by nearly 10%.

Samsung's Bargaining Power Strengthens

Analysts believe this price hike marks a turning point for Samsung's foundry business, which industry estimates suggest has been loss-making since 2022.

As AI chip demand surges, global chip manufacturing capacity has become tight, a market long dominated by TSMC.

Although Samsung's overall profits have hit records driven by surging prices for memory chips used in AI systems, its foundry division has struggled to narrow the gap with TSMC.

According to data from research firm Counterpoint, in the first quarter of 2026, Samsung accounted for 7% of global foundry revenue, while TSMC's share exceeded 70%.

However, AI chip demand has consumed most of TSMC's advanced process capacity. As TSMC's capacity approaches saturation, Samsung has gained more room to raise prices.

Samsung expects advanced processes to account for more than half of its foundry revenue this year, with AI and high-performance computing (HPC) applications contributing over 30%, up from 15% to 20% at the end of 2025.

Lee Min-hee, an analyst at BNK Investment & Securities in Seoul, said, "As TSMC faces capacity constraints and raises prices, clients are turning to competitors like Samsung and Intel, which has also prompted Samsung to increase prices."

He added, "If Samsung continues to raise prices from now on, its foundry business could become profitable as early as next year, ahead of previous expectations."

Last month, Samsung stated that with improved factory capacity utilization, better production yields, and firmer prices, its foundry division is expected to return to profitability in the near future.

Samsung also said at the time that sales growth from major clients and demand for HBM base dies would drive its foundry business revenue in the second half of the year to grow by double-digit percentages year-over-year.

Improved production yields have also helped Samsung win more clients. Last year, Tesla and Apple respectively announced chip manufacturing agreements with Samsung, and Broadcom also reached an AI chip production deal with Samsung last month.

In March, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang stated that Samsung would produce a new generation of AI inference processors for Nvidia. Additionally, reports indicate that Google is also in talks with Samsung to produce chips using the SF4 process.