On June 7th, according to CCTV Finance and Economics, "chip lack" and "chip shortage", this domino is spreading in the global industrial chain, and every card falling down causes a new chain reaction.
As many as 169 industries around the world are affected, and the automotive industry bears the brunt
It has become the norm for auto manufacturers to stop production and reduce production recently. It is worth mentioning that the reason for the reduction in production is not because the cars produced are not bought, but because consumers demand too much for cars, which causes the supply of car chips to fail to keep up. The speed of car production, in this case, car manufacturers can only be forced to reduce production, or even stop production. Ford, Suzuki, Volkswagen Americas, Toyota, Honda, and many other well-known auto companies have announced plans to suspend their production lines.
Unlike consumer electronic products such as mobile phones and game consoles, a car needs hundreds or even thousands of chips, and the lack of one will result in the failure of the entire car to be produced. Moreover, the requirements for automotive chips far exceed those of consumer electronics chips. For example, the development of 5nm mobile phone chips has been very mature, and 14nm and 7nm are also very common. Car chips do not require such advanced technology, but their production standards are much higher than those of mobile phone chips.
Although the automotive industry has high requirements for chips, based on the current level of chip manufacturing, it is not a problem for chip manufacturers to produce high-standard automotive chips, but the automotive industry will still fall into a chip dilemma that is more serious than the mobile phone industry. The most important thing is The reason is the transfer of chip production capacity during the epidemic. Affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the development of a series of activities such as remote office, online education and home life has led to an explosive demand for a series of entertainment and office electronic products such as mobile phones, tablets, and game consoles. Semiconductor manufacturers have switched to this part of production. Chips, which in turn led to a decline in automotive chip production capacity. Now that the epidemic has improved, the automotive market has awakened, but the capacity gap cannot be made up for a while, and the "chip shortage" has naturally begun to appear.
Chip shortages have made corporate executives even more deserted. Some executives even went to the door of chip manufacturers. The shortage of chips is not only in the automotive industry. Now the impact of the "chip shortage" has spread to all kinds of enterprises
According to a CCTV financial report, "My order is estimated to be 80 million U.S. dollars next month, but now it is estimated to be only about 70 million U.S. dollars. Then the difference of 10 million U.S. dollars may be the lack of some chips." The manufacturer's general manager Liu Zongbao said that the routers and other products produced by his company are sold to Europe, America, Asia Pacific and other regions. Nowadays, due to the tight supply of chips, enterprise shipments are severely restricted.
Wang Qiang is the person in charge of a small home appliance company. Since the beginning of this year, his small home appliance production has stalled, which is also caused by the lack of cores. "It was obvious to us last month that our suppliers or supply chain did not deliver our products on time because of the lack of cores."
Goldman Sachs' latest research report pointed out that as many as 169 industries around the world have been hit by chip shortages to some extent, including steel products, concrete production, air-conditioning manufacturing, beer brewing, soap production and many other industries.
"Can't buy" and "Can't afford"
The global core shortage has intensified, and price increases are imperative. "Can't buy" and "can't afford" have become a common dilemma faced by downstream enterprises.
Li Weiqun, deputy general manager of an Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., said that the chip used in the product is made in Germany. Last year the price was 3.5 yuan a piece, and the price has risen to 16.5 yuan this year. In contrast, the price of a chip soared 5 times.
The global "core shortage" has intensified, making price increases imperative. "Can't buy" and "can't afford" have become a common dilemma faced by many downstream companies. A practitioner told reporters that the price of a German chip they used was 3.5 yuan last year, and this year it has risen to 16.5 yuan, and the price of a chip has increased five times.
Similarly, OFweek electronic engineering network has also seen industry insiders in many industry exchange groups. The price increase of many original devices is surprising. Some people even said that the price of MCU has increased by 10 times. The high prices have also caused companies to "daunt them", preferring to suspend work and production; some people also say that unless the original factory ships in large quantities, it will be difficult to do. But the original factory is not facing the troubles of upstream materials and other factors. All in all, the chip manufacturers start the price increase mode, and the end result is that consumers pay the bill
The epidemic broke out again, and semiconductor manufacturers "suffered"
Just last week, a mass infection occurred in the Zhunan plant of the semiconductor packaging and testing giant Jingyuan Electronics. According to the latest data, KYEC has completed the inspection of all 7,106 employees yesterday, and 65 new confirmed cases. The cumulative number of migrant workers and Taiwanese employees infected with the epidemic reached 195, making it the largest mass infection incident in Miaoli County.
At present, foreign workers of Jingyuan Electronics, a major packaging and testing company, have stopped going to work, staying at home, and paying their salaries. KYEC predicts that the most serious situation is that foreign workers stay at home after a full vacation of 14 days. There are more than 2,000 foreign workers in KYEC, and the relevant manpower accounts for nearly 30% of the total manpower, reaching about 27%. If the foreign migrant workers take all 14 days of leave, the company admits that it is difficult to assess the subsequent impact of operations. It is reported that KYEC's two-day shutdown will affect 3% of its production capacity. The night shift restarted at 7:20 last night, but the company said that the manpower was limited and the production line resumed operation but still reduced load.
In addition to KYEC's Zhunan plant, another Taiwanese packaging and testing plant that also has a plant in Zhunan, Chaofeng Electronics, a subsidiary of Licheng, also reported that an employee was diagnosed with new coronary pneumonia. So far, 17 people have quickly screened positive and 11 have been diagnosed. In this regard, Chaofeng Electronics stated that everything will be subject to the announcement of the Taiwan Epidemic Command Center.
Taiwan's semiconductor packaging and testing industry has become the hardest hit area of the epidemic in Taiwan, and the epidemic is still expanding. Similarly, the subsequent impact of Malaysia’s “closed country” due to the epidemic has also brought a serious crisis to the global semiconductor supply chain.
In order to prevent the further spread of the epidemic, Malaysia entered a lockdown period across the country on June 1. As one of the most important bases of the global semiconductor industry, more than 50 semiconductor companies worldwide have investments in Malaysia. As we all know, semiconductor packaging and testing is a necessary post-production process for chip manufacturing. At present, the continuous shortage of foundry capacity has caused a global semiconductor supply crisis. The lack of core has seriously affected terminal products in many fields such as automobiles and consumer electronics. In production and manufacturing, if the packaging and testing capacity, which is already in short supply, is lost again, it will undoubtedly further aggravate the problem of global core shortage and price increase.