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Infineon actually didn't want to start up its new chip factory in Villach, Austria, until the end of the year.
But now the company from Neubiberg near Munich is pulling the opening of the new plant forward by around three months.
The reason is simple: Infineon is running at full load, and it has long been impossible to accept all orders for semiconductors.
The market for chips has been completely overheated for weeks, and some car manufacturers such as Daimler and Volkswagen even had to cut back their production because they cannot get the electronic components they need for their vehicles quickly enough.
Suddenly, numerous industries are scrambling for semiconductors, and especially the Asian factories, in which chip companies from all over the world often manufacture, are no longer able to keep up.
Infineon boss Reinhard Ploss can still remember the boom a good 20 years ago when, in 1999 and 2000, massive amounts of chips were suddenly required for mobile communications.
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"So I've seen something like this before, but it's unusual that so much comes together," said Ploss on Thursday.
"Many customers underestimate the complexity of the supply chain."
The Infineon boss does not want to publicly criticize his customers, especially in the automotive industry.
But if you read between the lines, you can tell that the carmakers are to blame for their production problems.
Because the manufacturers had drastically reduced their orders last spring when demand for cars collapsed worldwide in the course of the first lockdown.
Apparently the industry had not expected that the market would pick up so strongly again last autumn: Suddenly the semiconductors were missing.
Contract manufacturers have booked their capacities
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But the contract manufacturers in Asia in particular had now committed their capacities to other industries, which are also booming.
Because in order to get through the lockdown, people stocked up on WiFi routers, exercise bikes and game consoles, and contactless payment also experienced a boost - and you need chips for everything.
At Infineon, too, it is made clear that, of course, the first step is to process the orders that have been received and confirmed early on.
“We keep agreements when others have ordered for a longer period of time,” said Ploss.
The Neubiberger Group estimates that five to ten percent of global demand in the automotive sector cannot currently be met.
In Germany, the problem is mainly perceived in the automotive industry, but the shortage of chips also affects other areas - in some cases even more.
Source: WORLD infographic
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Accordingly, Infineon was able to increase its sales in the first quarter of the fiscal year, which starts with the chip manufacturer in October, by 37 percent compared to the previous year to more than 2.6 billion euros.
The profit also increased significantly by 22 percent to now 256 million euros.
The group was also able to increase its forecast for the current year.
Even with the new Infineon factory, the shortage will not change quickly.
“Braking is quick, but accelerating is difficult,” said Ploss.
Infineon also wants to use the situation to negotiate with the auto industry on how to prevent similar cases in the future.
For example, agreements are conceivable with which certain capacities are reserved, which is already common in other areas, but not in the automotive industry.
However, Infineon is always concerned with special semiconductors for certain applications.
Standard chips such as memory modules, on the other hand, can be bought on the spot market, similar to raw materials.
Large batches of standard chips are traded there like on the stock exchange - with correspondingly volatile prices, which are usually higher than those of long-term contracts anyway.
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The shortage of chips ensures that prices for DRAM memory chips, for example, have risen significantly in recent months.
According to the specialist publication “Digitimes”, they are currently over 20 percent higher than the price of long-term supply contracts.
However, this causes problems for the suppliers who sell their control units to the carmaker with very tight margins.
Because, unlike smartphone manufacturers, for example, they do not have much leeway for corresponding price adjustments.
On top of that, Chinese electronics companies are currently trying to escape US trade sanctions to secure capacities from chip manufacturers without US influence, and are partially crowding out orders from automakers.
Infineon is therefore also observing geopolitical developments with concern.
Both the US and China are currently trying to become more autonomous in microelectronics.
“We assume that there will be certain changes in the value chain,” said Ploss.
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“Europe is also ambitious.” However, European politics cannot ensure more independence of the domestic industry from Asia's chip factories in the short term.
Economics minister Peter Altmaier (CDU) wants to ensure that Europe's role in the semiconductor industry is expanded in the context of another EU initiative.
Infineon also wants to participate in the EU's second so-called IPCEI program for microelectronics.
It is already clear that the need for chips, especially for the automotive industry, will continue to grow.
Semiconductors for vehicles still make up around eight percent of the total market, Apple alone has a similar share.
But with the change to electromobility, the needs of the automotive industry will continue to grow.
Just a few years ago, manufacturers of high-end electronics and car components didn't get in each other's way: the chips in smartphones and PCs are manufactured using the latest processes.
Car chips, on the other hand, had to be robust for a long time, and energy consumption and computing power played a smaller role.
Cars now also need high-end chips
But that changes in modern vehicles with electric drives, multimedia and assistance systems: Modern cockpits from Mercedes, Audi and Volkswagen, for example, use nVidia graphics chips that come from the same production lines as the graphics chips in current PCs.
The memory modules in modern car control units are the same as in smartphones.
These production lines are used by contract manufacturers such as Samsung and TSMC.
The cost of building a chip factory has increased over the past few years the more the structures in the chips have shrunk.
Samsung's largest factory for ten-nanometer chips in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, cost $ 14 billion and took the company over three years to build.
Manufacturers are cautious about both construction time and capital requirements: building a new factory to respond to temporarily increased demand can be an expensive mistake.
Market leader TSMC is currently working on a new factory in the US state of Arizona for twelve billion dollars, completion by 2029.
The factory is already being asked for orders, TSMC's capacities for high-end chips are booked out for years to come.
And even if a European manufacturer decided to build its own factory on the greenfield immediately, it would have to line up behind TSMC and Samsung.
Because even machine builders like the Dutch ASML, who manufacture the complex machines for chip production, are fully booked for years to come.
This is good news for Infineon, the factory in Austria is as good as finished.