Cost per Wafer

Cost per wafer is the total manufacturing cost to process one wafer through all fabrication steps. It's the fundamental unit economics metric for semiconductor manufacturing.

Typical Cost Per Wafer (300mm)

• Mature nodes (28nm+): $2,000-4,000 per wafer
• Advanced nodes (7-10nm): $8,000-12,000 per wafer
• Leading edge (3-5nm): $15,000-20,000+ per wafer
• 2nm (projected): $25,000-30,000 per wafer

Cost Components

Materials (15-25%): Silicon wafers, chemicals, gases, slurries, photoresists, targets. Depreciation (30-40%): Equipment amortization—a single EUV scanner costs $350M and lasts ~10 years. Labor (10-15%): Engineers, technicians, operators (highly automated fabs need fewer people). Utilities (5-10%): Electricity (50-100MW per fab), ultra-pure water, cleanroom HVAC. Overhead (10-20%): Facility maintenance, IT, management, quality systems.

Why Cost Increases at Advanced Nodes

More process steps (500 at 28nm → 1000+ at 3nm). More EUV layers ($350M per scanner, 10-20+ EUV layers). More **mask layers** (60-80 masks, $5-10M per mask set). Lower yields during ramp (fewer good dies per wafer). Higher fab construction cost ($20B+ for a leading-edge fab).

Cost Per Die

What really matters is cost per good die = cost per wafer / (die per wafer × die yield). Even though advanced-node wafers cost more, the smaller die size and higher transistor density can reduce cost per transistor.