(Economic Observation) When will the shortage of chips in foundry factories be relieved?
China News Service, Beijing, December 13 (Reporter Liu Yuying) The new round of chip shortages has already affected terminal industries such as automobiles, mobile phones, and consumer electronics.
As the production capacity of chip foundries is difficult to expand rapidly, industry insiders believe that this round of chip shortages may not be alleviated until the end of next year.
The relevant person in charge of the public relations department of Volkswagen Group (China) said in an interview with the media that the uncertainty brought about by the new crown pneumonia epidemic has affected the supply of chips for some specific automotive electronic components.
The overall recovery of the Chinese market has also further promoted the growth of demand, and some automobile production faces the risk of interruption.
In addition to automobiles, mobile phone chips have also begun to be in short supply, and chip companies have even contributed funds to help foundries expand production.
MediaTek plans to spend NT$1.62 billion to purchase equipment used for chip manufacturing and lease it to Powerchip, a supply chain manufacturer, to increase production capacity.
At present, the production capacity of foundry companies such as TSMC, Samsung, GF, UMC, and SMIC continues to be full.
Peng Jin, senior vice president of global sales and marketing of SMIC, said that the first reason for the tight production capacity of chip foundry is that the demand growth far exceeds expectations.
The advent of 5G has promoted the growth of demand for chips in mobile phones and base stations, and the number of PMIC chips in each mobile phone has increased from an average of 4 to 5 to 7 to 8.
Automotive networking, IoT/smart home demand continues to rise, and the "home economy" effect of the new crown epidemic has driven the substantial growth of servers and PCs, which has also led to a sharp increase in market demand for chips.
Zhang Yang, a senior analyst at Zhongcheng Think Tank, told a reporter from China News Agency that the current growth in demand for consumer electronics such as automotive electronics, mobile phones, and smart homes has far exceeded the expected growth in production capacity. Superimposed on the impact of the new crown epidemic on the global supply chain system, The production capacity of 8-inch wafers is obviously insufficient.
The stocking of terminal manufacturers has also exacerbated the shortage of foundry capacity.
Han Xiaomin, general manager of Jiwei Consulting, told a reporter from China News Agency that after Huawei, other mobile phone manufacturers began to stock up on a large scale this year in order to ensure the security of the supply chain and seize the market.
Recently, SMIC announced an investment of RMB 50 billion to build a factory in Beijing to produce 12-inch integrated circuit wafers and integrated circuit packaging series.
Peng Jin said that under the influence of the epidemic this year, major global suppliers have suspended shipments, and even if the equipment enters the factory, there is no team to install it, which directly leads to the delay of the expansion of production capacity.
The release of chip manufacturing capacity requires cycles, which also leads foundries to be cautious in expanding their capacity.
Peng Jin said that it is necessary to judge and invest to expand production based on market and customer needs.
Han Xiaomin believes that SMIC's capacity release will not be until the end of 2022 or the beginning of 2023, which cannot quickly alleviate the current capacity shortage.
This round of chip shortage will almost end until the end of next year.
Foundry World Advanced Chairman Fang Lue said that the world’s most advanced applications in power management ICs, driver ICs and image sensors are currently the hottest in demand, and automotive electronics demand is also significantly stronger. It is expected that the supply of 8-inch wafer foundries will be in short supply. , At least until the first half of next year or even the third quarter.
German auto parts supplier Continental Group said that after the epidemic caused global sales to decline, Chinese semiconductor demand rebounded, and the supply chain bottleneck may continue until 2021.
At present, chip manufacturing has become the "short board" of China's electronic information industry.
Zhang Yang believes that chip manufacturing is not only the introduction of equipment, but also a breakthrough in the production of chip manufacturing equipment in terms of new materials, precision, and technology, in order to truly solve this "shortcoming" from the source.
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