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Samsung raises July foundry quotes up to 15% on 4nm, 5nm, and 8nm nodes amid AI demand, with Chinese customers facing the steepest hikes, report says
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Samsung raised July quotes on its 4nm, 5nm, and 8nm foundry processes by up to 15%, with Chinese customers absorbing the steepest increases, according to a Reuters report citing sources familiar with the matter.
For engineers sourcing advanced-node wafers, the practical effect is that prices on Samsung's mature-but-still-leading-edge nodes are moving while capacity is constrained. The 4nm Pyeongtaek line has run at full capacity since late last year, and a slice of wafer starts is reserved for Samsung's own HBM base dies and Qualcomm, so external customers face both higher prices and tighter allocation. Chinese chip designers cut off from TSMC by U.S. export controls have the least room to push back, which is why they are taking the steepest hikes.
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Samsung's July quotes rose 10% to 15% on the 4nm SF4 process for China and U.S. customers, 5% to 10% in Taiwan, 10% to 15% on the 5nm SF5 process, and close to 10% on 8nm, per a Reuters report.
The 4nm line at Pyeongtaek has been at full capacity since late last year, with external customers competing for wafer starts against Samsung's own HBM base dies and Qualcomm logic chips.
Samsung is still pricing beneath TSMC's expected increases while its foundry division has been loss-making since 2022, with an analyst suggesting the business could turn profitable as early as next year if the pricing holds.
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July quotes for Samsung's 4nm SF4 process climbed 10% to 15% from June for customers in China and the U.S., while Taiwan saw smaller increases of 5% to 10%. The 5nm SF5 process went up 10% to 15% and the 8nm node by close to 10%. Chinese chip designers are absorbing the largest increases because U.S. export controls have cut them off from TSMC's leading-edge nodes, leaving Samsung as the available supplier for advanced logic. Samsung declined to comment on the Reuters report, which cited two people familiar with the matter.
The pricing power comes from a Pyeongtaek 4nm line that has reportedly run at full capacity since late last year. Chinese orders now exceed what Samsung can take, but U.S. customers get served first and a slice of capacity stays reserved for Samsung's own silicon. That captive allocation matters for any engineer planning wafer starts, because the Pyeongtaek SF4 line builds the base dies underneath Samsung's HBM stacks alongside Qualcomm logic chips, so external foundry customers are competing with the memory business for the same tool set.
Samsung's pricing sits beneath TSMC's umbrella but represents a clear directional shift. TSMC notified customers of 5% to 10% increases across all sub-5nm nodes starting in January, with some services reportedly rising around 25% in 2027, and Samsung is moving beneath that ceiling while still gaining on its loss-making unit. The foundry division has been unprofitable since 2022, and Lee Min-hee, an analyst at BNK Investment & Securities, told Reuters the business could become profitable as early as next year if the price discipline holds.
The customer list behind that forecast has grown over the past year and now spans Tesla's $16.5 billion AI chip contract, an Apple manufacturing deal, a Broadcom AI chip agreement, and Nvidia's inference processor. Samsung's chip exports to China grew 54% between 2023 and 2024, including a deal that supplied Baidu's Kunlun with more than three years' worth of logic dies for AI accelerators, so Chinese demand is not retreating from the hike. Even with a 7% global foundry revenue share in Q1 2026 against TSMC's more than 70%, Samsung has enough demand on the books to push prices without losing the order book, and a 2nm wafer price of $20,000 reportedly set to undercut TSMC by roughly a third shows the company is still competing aggressively at the leading edge even as it raises mature-node quotes.
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