In early September, the electronic materials industry witnessed a synchronized "price tag change": Japan's Panasonic raised substrate material prices effective that day, with some products increasing by up to 30%; Nan Ya Plastics, headquartered in Taiwan, China, implemented new prices for copper clad laminates and prepregs simultaneously, with increases of 20% to 25%; South Korea's Samsung Electro-Mechanics raised prices across its entire MLCC product line by 30%; and China Jushi, a domestic leader in electronic cloth, also increased its September electronic cloth quotations by 15% to 20%. Price hikes are shifting from sporadic events to the new normal in the electronic materials industry.
Over the past year, price increase notices have spread from copper clad laminates to electronic cloth, copper foil, and resin, and then transmitted to MLCCs and silicon wafers, spanning the two industrial chains of printed circuit boards (PCBs) and semiconductors. This article first puts "price hikes" under the microscope to dissect the data, and then extends along the data: when price hikes become the norm, what kind of reshaping is happening in the industrial chain?
01. A Price Hike Calendar Turned Page by "Month"
It all started with the seventh price increase notice issued by Kingboard Laminates on August 28 this year: the price of full-thickness FR-4 copper clad laminates increased by 10%, and PP prepregs were adjusted according to specifications, with thick cloth of 7628 and above increasing by 10%, and thin cloth below 7628 increasing by 20%. According to public reports, Kingboard has basically implemented "a monthly price hike" since March, completing seven rounds of price adjustments by August 28. Calculated on a compound interest basis, the cumulative increase for FR-4 copper clad laminates has exceeded 100%.
Delivering a notice every month means that price hikes have been written into the business rhythm, becoming a calendar turned page by "month" — and Kingboard is not the only one turning the calendar. Public information shows that due to the rising costs of copper foil and glass fiber, Panasonic will implement new prices starting September 1, with some products increasing by up to 30%; Nan Ya Plastics' price adjustment notice directly pointed to the "abnormally tight supply of glass fiber cloth" upstream, and will increase the overall prices of copper clad laminates and prepregs by 20% to 25% starting September 1; quotations from Taiwanese manufacturers such as TUC, Taisoar, and ITEQ are also expected to follow suit in the second half of the year.
On the passive components front, Murata adjusted prices across its entire line of AI server and high-end automotive-grade MLCCs by 15% to 35% in March, and Samsung Electro-Mechanics implemented a uniform 30% increase across its entire line starting August 1; after increasing prices for high-capacity automotive products by 10% to 30% in April, Taiyo Yuden raised prices again in September, citing rising costs of barium titanate powder, nickel powder, and rare earth additives. At the very upstream of semiconductors, according to CCTV News, 6-inch, 8-inch, and 12-inch silicon wafers have seen their first full-size price increase in three years, with increases starting at 10%, and new contract quotations for 12-inch wafers raised by more than 10%; as early as May 10, the three major leaders Shin-Etsu Chemical, SUMCO, and GlobalWafers had issued the second round of price increase notices this year, with 12-inch standard wafers increasing by 5% to 8%, and high-end wafers dedicated to AI and high-performance computing increasing by 18% to 22%.
Pushing the timeline further forward, the calendar has turned many pages: electronic cloth has been on an upward trend since September 2025, and MLCCs have seen price adjustments across multiple categories since the second half of 2025. The so-called "September price hike wave" is merely the calendar turning another month — this round of restructuring has been going on for nearly a year and is still accelerating.
02. Price Restructuring Under the Magnifying Glass: Understanding the Year Through Four Numbers
The habit of using a data microscope is to break down the numbers one by one. In this round of price hikes, four numbers are most worth pondering.
"100%" belongs to copper clad laminates. According to public reports, after seven rounds of price increases this year, the cumulative compound increase for Kingboard's FR-4 copper clad laminates has exceeded 100%. Copper clad laminates are the core base material for printed circuit boards. Copper foil, resin, and glass fiber cloth account for about 80% of its costs. When they all rise, it can only follow suit and transmit the increases downstream.
"CNY 10/meter" is the "value" of a piece of electronic cloth. According to data from SCI, the mainstream transaction price of 7628 electronic cloth in August rose to CNY 10.1 to 10.2 per meter, an increase of about 121% from the beginning of the year, and an increase of more than 1.6 times compared to CNY 3.8 in September 2025; the thinner 2116 and 1080 rose to CNY 12.7 and CNY 13.1 respectively, with cumulative increases of over 140% this year. Electronic cloth is just the "cloth" layer in the middle of the copper clad laminate. The fact that the price of one piece of cloth has more than doubled precisely indicates that the source of the price hike is not in the copper clad laminate, but in the more upstream electronic yarn and electronic cloth.
"260%" belongs to the demand growth rate of copper foil dedicated to computing power. According to CCTV Finance, market estimates show that in 2026, the demand for high-end copper foil dedicated to AI servers will be about 24,000 tons, a year-on-year increase of about 260%; a single AI training server uses 15 to 30 kg of copper, which is 3 to 6 times that of an ordinary server. While demand is expanding, the processing fees for some high-grade copper foils have increased by 30% to 50% since December last year, and ultra-low profile copper foil has also increased by about 10% to 30% this year — a textbook example of simultaneous volume and price increases.
The fourth number is hidden in silicon wafer shipments. According to data from SEMI, global silicon wafer shipments in the second quarter of 2026 reached 3,573 million square inches, a year-on-year increase of 7.4% and a quarter-on-quarter increase of 9.1%, setting a new single-quarter high in the past two years and achieving positive year-on-year growth for four consecutive quarters. According to SUMCO's estimates, the demand for 12-inch silicon wafers from AI servers is 3.8 times that of general-purpose servers, and HBM's consumption of 12-inch silicon wafers is 3 times that of mainstream DRAM.
Combining these four numbers perfectly outlines the full picture of price restructuring: it is not an independent market trend for a single type of material, but a complete price hike chain starting from electronic yarn, copper foil, and resin, passing through copper clad laminates and printed circuit boards, and extending to passive components and silicon wafers.
03. The "Engine" of Price Hikes: Computing Power Spillover and Supply Rigidity
This engine is the change in demand structure brought about by AI computing power construction. To understand it, let's first look at a detail with a strong contrast: according to Kingboard Laminates' semi-annual report, the company's capacity has significantly shifted to AI-related high-end products, leading to a severe shortage of traditional electronic yarn and electronic cloth. On one hand, high-end demand is surging; on the other hand, ordinary capacity is being squeezed out, forming a scissors gap pattern of "high-end is not enough to use, and low-end is not enough to produce."
The structural changes on the demand side can be divided into three layers. First, the expansion of total volume: the consumption of copper clad laminates, copper foil, and silicon wafers by AI servers is several times that of traditional servers. Second, specification upgrades: AI servers are driving printed circuit boards towards high multi-layer and HDI structures, with layer counts often reaching 30 to 40 layers. The board material grades are upgrading from M7 and M8 to M9, and the unit price is jumping accordingly — according to a Goldman Sachs report in August, the average price of copper clad laminates for AI servers will rise from USD 93 per sheet in 2025 to USD 362 in 2028. Third, capacity squeeze: after high-end capacity is prioritized, the supply of ordinary products shrinks, and even the most ordinary FR-4 follows the price hike — this is exactly the micro-foundation of "a monthly price hike."
The reasons given on the supply side are more rigid. On the electronic cloth side, according to research reports from Guojin Securities and industry data, once a glass fiber pool kiln is ignited, it needs to run continuously for 8 to 10 years, and must be shut down for cold repair upon expiration. 2026 happens to be a year of concentrated cold repairs, with few newly ignited production lines, and high-end weaving equipment relies on overseas supply with delivery times measured in years. On the copper foil side, the capacity for high-end ultra-low profile copper foil (HVLP) is concentrated in a few overseas manufacturers. According to broker research reports and industry estimates, the global annual production capacity of surface treatment equipment adapted for HVLP4 and above specifications is only 10 to 12 units, with a delivery cycle of 18 to 24 months. On the silicon wafer side, according to industry data, the expansion cycle for newly built capacity is also calculated at 18 to 24 months.
Another boosting factor is the copper price. According to CCTV Finance, since the beginning of this year, the LME three-month copper futures have accumulated an increase of over 14%, and once stood at USD 14,000 per ton in mid-August; the main contract of Shanghai copper once rose from about CNY 86,000 per ton to nearly CNY 109,000. But the copper price is just a catalyst, not the engine — the most fundamental driving force for this round of price hikes is the continuous squeeze of electronic manufacturing resources by AI computing power construction.
04. When Price Hikes Become the Norm: Reshuffling the Industrial Chain and the Second Half
When price hikes shift from events to the norm, what they bring is far more than the prices themselves, but a reshuffling unfolding along the industrial chain.
The first stop of the reshuffling is performance. In the copper clad laminate segment, the revenue growth momentum of giant companies such as Shengyi Technology, Kingboard, and Nan Ya New Materials in the first half of the year has attracted attention. In the electronic cloth segment, the explosion in performance is more intuitive: Shandong Fiberglass's revenue in the first half of the year increased by 38.25% year-on-year, and net profit attributable to the parent company increased by 234.89%; Honghe Technology's revenue was CNY 1.048 billion, an increase of 90.39%, and net profit attributable to the parent company was CNY 379 million, an increase of 334.32%; China Jushi's revenue was CNY 11.159 billion, an increase of 22.50%, and net profit attributable to the parent company was CNY 2.933 billion, an increase of 73.87%. Prosperity is transmitted from prices to profits, and the blood-making capacity of the industrial chain is recovering.
The second stop of the reshuffling is the landscape. Cost increases are never evenly distributed: small and medium-sized manufacturers cannot get high-end materials and are also squeezed by costs; leading enterprises, on the other hand, transfer most of the pressure through their bargaining power. Capacity and orders are continuously concentrating towards the leaders, and an industry clearance directed towards high-endization is advancing mildly — it directs resources to enterprises that can truly meet AI demands.
The third stop of the reshuffling is supply response. Price hikes themselves are a mobilization order for capacity expansion: according to public reports, China Jushi's Huai'an annual production line of 100,000 tons of electronic-grade glass fiber zero-carbon intelligent production line has been ignited in phases in March and June and is operating at full capacity, with another production line of 50,000 tons of electronic yarn and 320 million meters of electronic cloth under construction; CPIC announced on the evening of August 31 that it plans to raise no more than CNY 5 billion to invest in high-end capacity such as high-frequency and high-speed electronic fiber cloth. But the material capacity cycle is measured in years, and new supply is a slow variable — this is exactly the reason why multiple brokerages judge that the tight balance of supply and demand will last at least until 2027.
How to view the second half? In the short term, price hikes still have inertia — some market views, citing a Citigroup research report, expect that Kingboard may initiate a new round of price adjustments in early October. In the medium term, silicon wafers are ushering in a critical window: from September to October, global silicon wafer manufacturers will start long-term contract negotiations for 2027 with wafer fabs, and long-term agreements with locked prices from the previous trough period are expiring in a concentrated manner; according to disclosures from manufacturers such as Wafer Works Master and GlobalWafers, they have started communicating new price adjustment mechanisms with customers. The market expects that the price benchmark for the new round of contracts will shift significantly upward, and some price hikes are expected to be "written into contracts." In the long term, Goldman Sachs expects the global AI server printed circuit board market to reach USD 84 billion in 2028, while the copper clad laminate market will also increase to USD 48 billion. The end point of price restructuring is not the price itself, but the systematic elevation of the entire industrial value.
When price hikes become the norm, it is more like a ruler suddenly revealed, measuring how the value in the computing power era is re-accounted upstream along the industrial chain. Electronic materials stand at the very front of digitalized equipment, becoming the "sentinel" of innovation — whoever owns high-end material capacity holds the ticket to the next round of industrial upgrading. This price hike calendar may continue to turn pages, but behind every page is written the same word: upgrading.
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