“Order now, and it won’t arrive for a year” ... Samsung Electro-Mechanics stands to gain as the MLCC shortage peaks

[Financial News] Surging demand for high-capacity multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs) for AI servers has pushed the lead time—the period from order to delivery—for some Samsung Electro-Mechanics products to about 14 months. Prices are rising as supply remains tight despite expanded production capacity, and customers are moving quickly to secure volumes through long-term contracts.
■ Lead times double as products sell out According to electronics component distributor DigiKey on the 8th, delivery lead times for seven Samsung Electro-Mechanics MLCC products rose across the board to 61 weeks last month, from around 29–31 weeks in July this year. The industry considers around 12 weeks to be a typical lead time for MLCCs. In just three months, the time from placing an order to receiving a product has roughly doubled.
High-capacity MLCCs, used mainly in AI servers and similar products, are particularly low on stock. Samsung Electro-Mechanics’ 47-microfarad (μF) MLCC has been out of stock for three consecutive months since August and is not expected to be restocked until January next year.
Competition to improve AI server performance is driving up demand for high-capacity MLCCs. An MLCC is a component that temporarily stores electricity and supplies it when needed, helping to keep voltage stable inside electronic devices. As AI semiconductors become more computationally powerful and consume more electricity, demand for high-capacity MLCCs also grows. Demand is expanding beyond GPUs (graphics processing units) to CPUs (central processing units), memory and other server components, adding to pressure on supply.
TrendForce analyzed that “demand for CPUs is increasing as AI applications expand from training to inference and AI agents,” adding that “demand for high-capacity MLCCs is rising sharply across CPU motherboards and DDR5 memory modules.”
Samsung Electro-Mechanics currently holds at least 40% of the global market for MLCCs used in AI servers. The number of suppliers is limited because these MLCCs must deliver high capacity and reliability in a small form factor. Since expanding production capacity also takes considerable time, tight supply is expected to persist.
Samsung Electro-Mechanics Vice President Lee Tae-gon said on the 28th of last month during the company’s third-quarter earnings conference call, “We are supplying 1005-size, 47-microfarad (μF) MLCCs, high-capacity products for AI, to new platforms from big tech companies,” and “we expect demand for this product to grow about eightfold in 2027.”
■ Prices also rise amid tight supply Tight supply is leading to higher prices. iM Securities said, “We understand that Samsung Electro-Mechanics has raised MLCC prices for some direct customers starting in the fourth quarter of this year,” adding, “As Japan’s Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd., the industry leader in MLCCs, has also moved to raise prices, industrywide price increases and supply shortages are expected to continue.”
Customers are moving quickly to secure MLCC volumes through long-term supply agreements (LTAs). Samsung Electro-Mechanics has signed or is in discussions over LTAs for high-value-added MLCCs with around 50 customers. At least half of its MLCC revenue is expected to come from long-term contracts next year. The company is also expanding production capacity in response to customer requests. Samsung Electro-Mechanics is building its third MLCC plant in Calamba, Laguna province, the Philippines, with operations targeted to begin in the first quarter of next year.
An industry official said, “It takes time to expand production of high-capacity MLCCs for AI servers, so supply cannot be increased immediately even when demand rises,” adding, “Customers are also prioritizing securing stable volumes, not just price, and are moving quickly to sign long-term contracts.”

[email protected] Park Ji-yeon Reporter