Price increase of 60%–70% — The "cornerstone" chips are going crazy! Foreign companies dominate about 80% of the high-end market. High-quality A-share companies are too scarce (list attached)

Dubbed the “cornerstone” of chips, the prices of semiconductor sputtering targets keep rising.

In Q1 2026, the global semiconductor market is undergoing a supply-and-demand shock fueled by strong demand at the high end: from upstream wafer foundries reserving capacity and purchasing key raw materials, to midstream full-capacity production of AI chips and memory, and then to downstream data centers and smart devices rushing to secure inventories. More than 50 industry companies have densely adjusted their prices, and the price increases of some high-end chips used for AI training even exceeded 100%.

This across-the-industry price hike wave is, in essence, the inevitable result of combined pressures caused by the exponential growth of AI compute demand, the cost pressures brought by the transition from mature nodes to advanced nodes, and geopolitical factors driving a regional restructuring of supply chains.

Looking at the price increases across various sub-sectors, memory chips and semiconductor consumables are especially pronounced. Among them, the price rally for semiconductor sputtering targets is extremely “fierce,” and the price increase for targets in the special precious metals category reaches as high as 60%—70%.

Chip “Cornerstone” prices have gone wild

Semiconductor sputtering targets are hailed as the “cornerstone” of chips because they play an irreplaceable core role in chip manufacturing, serving as the key material for achieving chip conductivity, interconnects, and functional integration. In Q1 2026, electronic target material companies have generally already initiated price increases, with price increases for conventional targets reaching 20%, and those for special precious metals category targets reaching 60%—70%.

A research report from Dongxing Securities states that the main drivers of target price increases are a sharp rise in metal costs, especially copper and tungsten. In addition, Japan’s leading target companies face risks of key raw material supply disruptions.

The target materials industry has broad market space. According to a report by Fortune Business Insights, it is expected that by 2027 the global semiconductor sputtering target market size will reach 8B yuan. Dongxing Securities notes that, based on the current supply-demand relationship, the target materials industry is expected to enter an upswing period in business conditions.

It is worth noting that the global high-end target materials market has long been dominated by overseas giants such as JX Metals (JX Nippon) and Honeywell. Data show that the four major players from the U.S. and Japan, represented by JX Nippon and Honeywell, together account for about 80% of market share.

Scarce quality A-share companies

On the A-share market, there are only three companies whose main product names include sputtering targets: Jiangfeng Electronics, Asch Creation and Oulei New Materials.

A research report from Huachuang Securities shows that Jiangfeng Electronics has been deeply focused on ultra-high-purity metal materials for more than 20 years. It has grown from a single target supplier into a comprehensive platform enterprise covering high-end sputtering targets and semiconductor precision components. The company’s target products have been steadily applied to 7nm and 5nm processes and have entered the 3nm advanced process. Its customer base covers major global wafer foundries such as TSMC, SK hynix, SMIC, and United Microelectronics. On the basis of steady global expansion in the target business, the company has followed trends of equipment localization and foundry capacity expansion, extending into precision components for equipment used in PVD/CVD and etching, and accelerating its entry into key “bottleneck” segments such as electrostatic chucks through fundraising investment projects and external technology cooperation, forming a dual-engine development pattern of “targets + components.”

According to the 2025 interim report, Asch Creation products include PVD coating materials such as sputtering targets, evaporation coating materials, and plating coating accessories. They can be widely used in industries including optical fiber communication, flat-panel displays, energy-saving glass, semiconductors, and photovoltaics.

Oulei New Materials’ main business is the research, production, and sales of high-performance sputtering targets, including various sizes and types of copper targets, aluminum targets, molybdenum and molybdenum alloy targets, and ITO targets. The products can be widely applied in fields such as semiconductor displays, touch panels, architectural glass, decorative coating, integrated circuit packaging, new energy batteries, and solar cells. They are key materials for the industrialized preparation of various thin films.

Semiconductor materials may be迎来 major opportunities

The industry outlook for semiconductor materials is also worth expecting. A research report from Galaxy Securities states that Japanese material manufacturer MGC announced that starting April 1, its key products in the electronic materials division will be comprehensively increased in price by 30%. Recently, a supplier of Japan’s WF6 has also begun notifying some Korean semiconductor companies that their raw material supply has been interrupted. The uptrend for semiconductor materials is becoming even more clear, and supply-chain security may become a key focus.

According to statistics from Securities Times·Data Treasure, there are 25 A-share stocks in the semiconductor materials industry. Among them, the top consensus forecast for 2026 net profit growth is Lianyang Micro at more than 12 times.

In addition, individual stocks such as Helinweina, Oulei New Materials, and Huahai Chengke all have expected 2026 net profit growth rates exceeding 100%.

Since the beginning of this year, nearly half of the stocks have risen in price, and Oulei New Materials and Jiangfeng Electronics have both accumulated gains exceeding 60%.

(Source: Data Treasure)