Silicon Wafer Cost

Wafer cost is a critical component of IC cost calculation. Wafer cost is based on 4 main factors: wafer technology node, e.g. 5nm, 65nm, 130nm, etc. Wafer options/features, e.g. all the options required on top of the plain vanilla, e.g. mim cap, flash, high voltage, etc. Wafer volume, e.g. how many wafers will your produce, e.g. obviously, the more wafers the lower the price. Wafer yield is a important factor that often neglected but need to be considered from the start.

Foundries calculate wafer price based on the technology node complexity. Some of the factors related to wafer price are: fab upfront investment in building the facility, installing the right tools and instruments and operation cost. It’s know that the labor cost of a fab is less then 10%.

Below please find a graph that shows the average wafer price of different technology nodes: