Recently, there has been a crisis of shortage of chips and components in the semiconductor and Electronic supply chains. At present, there is an air of “missing everything” in the market. In addition, under the chain effects such as the increase in the supply chain hoarding, Huawei hoarding, and the SMIC ban, the real chip supply and demand relationship is a bit unclear, and the industry is worried that a supply and demand reversal may occur.
Power management ICs bear the brunt
Industry insiders pointed out that the main material in this wave of shortages is power management ICs with doubled demand, and the shortage is more serious. The simultaneous issuance of a single chip affects the production schedule of other chips.
Tianxin learned that the power management IC for notebook computers has been out of stock since the second quarter. Although the supply side has increased, the demand for notebook computers driven by the epidemic has increased too much in the short term, so it is still in short supply. condition of the goods.
The latest research from data analysis agency Omdia shows that notebook computer shipments will reach 195.7 million units in 2020, a year-on-year increase of 14.1%. In 2020, Chromebook sales saw the biggest year-over-year increase of 67% to 22.2 million units.
Among them, the big sales of Chromebooks, the release of new Apple iPads and iPhones, and the release of PS5 game consoles after many years, obviously crowded out ordinary notebooks, boards and other products, and the number of power management ICs that these manufacturers can grab is limited.
What’s more, Apple, which has always had large orders and prioritized suppliers, recently reported that it is dealing with a shortage of power management chips needed for iPhones and other products. The news also made the market pay more attention to the shortage of power management ICs.
8-inch wafer foundry capacity is tight
The topic of tight 8-inch foundry capacity has been discussed for more than half a year. Led by the needs of 5G, automotive electronics, and IoT applications, the demand for products such as ultra-thin fingerprint recognition, power management ICs, MOSFETs, Panel driver ICs, and sensors has risen rapidly. The most cost-effective production of these chips is 6-inch and 8-inch. Wafer foundry, but 6-inch and 8-inch foundry capacity is limited, and it is more difficult to expand production.
Originally it could be used, but at the beginning of this year, it was suddenly hit by the epidemic, the terminal demand slowed down, and global semiconductors were simultaneously hit. Unexpectedly, applications such as remote office and online education under the epidemic have unexpectedly led to the outbreak of demand for PCs and laptops.
In addition, 5G mobile phones began to become popular. During the period, Huawei was affected by the ban and purchased a large number of various chips. The imbalance between supply and demand in the market has led to constant reports of shortages and price increases for chips such as panel driver ICs, power management ICs, and sensors produced in 8-inch fabs.
The market is “missing everything”
In addition to the above-mentioned panel driver ICs, power management ICs, sensors and other chips, numerous events that occurred during the same period intensified market tension.
Xinxing fire shock BT carrier board supply
AMD and NVIDIA have limited GPU supply, but mining demand is on the rise again
Intel process delays cause some CPUs to be out of stock
Fire at AKM semiconductor factory in Japan caused some models to rise 20 to 30 times
In the case of shortage of goods caused by various problems, the whole market presents a phenomenon of “in short supply” and “shortage of everything”.
Be wary of supply and demand reversal
From the point of view of wafer foundries, upstream 8-inch wafer fabs say that it is difficult to expand production capacity, and money cannot buy machinery and equipment. In addition, the foundry is also worried that if it greatly expands production and swallows the recent urgent orders and large orders, after the demand returns to calm, it will face the major problem of idle production capacity, so the scale of production capacity expansion is not large. The shortage of round capacity will last until April to May 2021.
According to Mantianxin, at this stage, the production of some power management ICs has been transferred from 8-inch fabs to 12-inch fabs, but it will take some conversion time.
According to the data reported by SEMI, by the end of 2020, the number of 8-inch production lines will recover to 191, and by the end of 2021, it will continue to grow to 202 (the data in 2016 is 188). The number of 8-inch fabs has grown a bit slow, but it has not stagnated.
In the short term, the shortage of wafer production capacity has aggravated the panic of “lack of cores” in the market, and the shortage of some chips will continue for a period of time. However, it should be noted that the explosive power of consumer electronics such as notebooks and boards has been insufficient recently. There is a certain smoke bomb in the supply and demand relationship of chips in the market. The market needs to be alert to the inversion of supply and demand and prepare in advance.
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