[News-Oxcart Network]
The global chip shortage remains dire.
Recently, Chinatown network learned that in response to the global semiconductor shortage, the Biden administration concluded that the impact will last at least until the second half of 2022, which will bring long-term pressure to many American companies, including automakers and the consumer electronics industry.
The U.S. Department of Commerce also said that according to a survey of semiconductor chip manufacturers and users, the chip shortage problem will continue throughout 2022, and it is mainly caused by the shortage of wafer capacity.
Based on a survey report from more than 150 companies in the chip supply chain, at this stage, there is a serious and ongoing mismatch between chip supply and demand, and the above-mentioned surveyed companies believe that these problems will not disappear at least half a year.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo noted that in the coming weeks, the industry will be involved in solving the problem of specific nodes, and will investigate claims that the prices of these nodes are unusually high.
The report shows that the market demand for chips is very high, and there is a continuous growth trend, which has increased by about 20% compared with 2019, but the supply has not increased accordingly, and there is a large gap between supply and demand. The Commerce Department warned that U.S. companies remain vulnerable to weakened supply chains, with some even facing forced temporary closures or layoffs.
According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, the median consumer inventory of key chips in the U.S. region has dropped from 40 days in 2019 to less than 5 days in 2021. This means that any supply outage from overseas chip suppliers, such as the outbreak of the new crown epidemic or the occurrence of disasters such as blizzards, may lead to production stoppages or even shutdowns in US factories. The Commerce Minister pointed out that there are many weaknesses in the current supply chain, and the 5-day inventory shows that there is not much room for fault.
The report also highlights that the Biden administration does not have much control over the chip crisis, in addition to the postponement of factory production, many workers in the automotive industry have also been forced to stop work and take vacations. In addition, chip shortages have also become a key factor driving inflation.
Most industry executives warned that chip shortages would continue at least until the second half of 2022, with production of some models even delayed until 2023.
In 2021, the global chip shortage crisis has seriously affected the development of the automotive industry, and volkswagen, Ford, Toyota and Nissan's major automakers have said that they continue to be affected by the chip shortage, and some models have to be forced to cut production. Many car companies, including Volkswagen and Stellantis Group, warned that in the first half of 2022, chip supply will remain tight.
Toyota has already cut its production target for February 2022, and the chip shortage will reduce its global production by 150,000 units to about 700,000 units in February, in addition to the annual target of producing 9 million vehicles by March 31 this year will not be met.
Executives at German semiconductor maker Infineon also said that the shortage of the company's core products will not improve until this summer, and will not end completely until 2023. In some cases, the supply of electronic power components and sensors has eased, but there is still a part of the supply and demand gap for off-site manufactured microprocessors.
Infineon revealed that in order to meet the growing market demand, the company plans to expand production capacity, including increasing investment in the Villach plant in Austria to meet the growing demand for silicon carbide.
In addition, traditional chip manufacturer Intel announced that it will invest $20 billion to build two new chip factories in Ohio, USA, and is expected to be officially put into operation in 2025.
According to the Associated Press, Europe and the United States are vigorously promoting the increase of chip production capacity, by enhancing localization supply capacity, in order to reduce the excessive dependence on supply in other regions such as Asia. Previously, the outbreak of the epidemic in Malaysia has restricted the production of many car companies, which has also sounded the alarm for car companies to rely too much on external suppliers. It is understood that the Biden administration is promoting a subsidy bill worth 52 billion yuan, hoping to encourage chip manufacturing in the United States and attract more manufacturers to make related investments in the United States.
The German government has also previously stated that it plans to invest more than 10 billion euros to help attract semiconductor manufacturers to set up factories in Germany. According to the latest data from the German Electronics and Electrical Industry Association, from January to November 2021, chip production increased by 9% year-on-year, and it is expected that the output in 2022 is expected to increase by 4% on this basis. The German electronics industry is in dire need of a rapid recovery from the pandemic.
At the same time, chipmakers are also working to expand their operations to reduce the adverse impact of factors such as natural disasters and lockdown measures on supply chains. TSMC and MediaTek, two major chipmakers, plan to hire more than 10,000 engineers in 2022 to actively expand their business scale and maintain a technological leadership posture in the context of global economies promoting the development of local industries.
In the domestic market, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology recently said that in 2021, in the face of chip shortage crisis in all walks of life, the automotive industry has been hit the most, although this problem has been alleviated, but the stability of the global integrated circuit supply chain is still facing severe challenges, and in the future, the supply of chips will continue to be in a state of tension for a long time. The relevant person in charge of Shanghai Municipality said that in the environment of large-scale "lack of cores" of intelligent and connected vehicles, Shanghai will vigorously lay out the production of vehicle-grade chips to solve the problem of lack of cores in automobiles as soon as possible.
As of now, China's production capacity in the field of semiconductor chips is in the second camp, and the degree of localization of chips is not high, but it is the world's largest semiconductor chip consumer market. Therefore, the demand for semiconductor chips will only become more and more vigorous in the future, and the boom wave of the semiconductor chip industry in 2022 is about to open, and car companies and suppliers need to be prepared as soon as possible.