Bosch Suzhou and many other chip industry chain employees have been diagnosed that the "lack of core" of the car will be aggravated?

Per reporter: Zhu Chengxiang Per reporter Per editor: Yang Xia

On February 19, Suzhou issued a disclosure that a staff member of Bosch Automotive Parts (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Bosch Suzhou") was diagnosed with an asymptomatic infected person.

As a well-known Tier 1 (tier 1 supplier of automotive OEMs), Bosch's every move is very important to the automotive industry chain, especially two semiconductor industry companies in Suzhou Industrial Park have suspended production due to the epidemic. For the production situation of Bosch Suzhou, the reporter of the Daily Economic News called Bosch China and Bosch Suzhou on February 21, but they could not be connected.

How does Bosch respond?

In 2021, the "lack of core" in the automotive industry lasted for a whole year. Entering 2022, the situation of "lack of core" has not been alleviated. Recently, Ford Motor spokeswoman Kelli Felker said that due to the global semiconductor shortage, some of Ford's assembly plants will continue to shut down this week, and the Transit production line at the Ohio assembly plant and the Kansas City assembly plant will be shut down; the frequency of shifts at the Kentucky Trucks, Chicago and Dearborn assembly plants will be reduced.

According to the authoritative forecasting agency AFS report, since 2022, the lack of core has led to a reduction in global automobile production by about 527,400 units, higher than the agency's previous expectations.

At a time when the global automobile "lack of core" is once again tense, Bosch, a tier-1 supplier of important automotive OEMs, has been affected by the epidemic. Will Bosch Suzhou stop production? Will the supply of automotive electronics be affected? These issues tie the heartstrings of automakers.

It is reported that Bosch Suzhou was established in 1999 and is now one of the world's largest R&D and manufacturing centers in Bosch. By the end of 2020, Bosch Suzhou had 9,526 employees, including 2,100 R&D personnel, and had three factories and an office location in Suzhou. It consists of seven business units: Automotive Electronics, Chassis Control Systems, Intelligent Driving and Control, Intelligent Manufacturing Solutions, Bosch Connected Industries, Two-Wheelers and Sport vehicles, and cross-business cooperation platforms. Products include automotive electronic control unit, brake anti-lock braking system ABS, electronic stability program ESP and so on.

Among them, ESP is the hardest hit area for the lack of cores in 2021, due to the shortage of on-board MCUs from upstream suppliers, resulting in a shortage of Bosch ESP products.

In fact, Bosch Suzhou responded before employees were diagnosed with asymptomatic infections. On the morning of February 14, Bosch Suzhou's official WeChat account released that all employees need to cooperate with health codes and body temperature measurements to enter the factory; cancel offline training and meetings; and refuse all visitors. In addition, from February 15, employees are required to present a 48-hour negative nucleic acid certificate to enter the company area.

On February 17, Bosch Suzhou announced that the company would launch a "closed-loop management" campaign, the first round of which began on Saturday afternoon, February 19, and ended on the evening of February 27. To this end, the company divides the employees stationed in the Soviet Union into the first group and the second group. Among them, the first group of people will participate in the "closed-loop management of centralized accommodation in the hotel", and employees will only carry out closed-loop management between the company and the hotel at two points and one line, and will not leave the hotel during non-working hours. The second group of people has the conditions to work from home, and the remaining personnel uniformly arrange vacations.

However, before the "closed-loop management" campaign began, some employees were infected. On February 18, an employee of Bosch Suzhou working on the 16th floor of the 208 R&D building in the Xinglong Street factory was diagnosed with asymptomatic infection. The 208 R&D building of Xinglong Street Factory has become an epidemic containment area since 20:00 on February 18 to carry out disinfection work. Bosch Suzhou requires employees not to enter the 208 R&D building until the lockdown is lifted.

Bosch Suzhou has closed the 208 R&D building Image source: Screenshot of Bosch Suzhou public account

In addition, due to the large number of centralized isolation needs generated by the prevention and control of the epidemic in Suzhou, the hotel designated by Bosch Suzhou for closed-loop management has refused to provide services for some reason, so it has abandoned the implementation of the "hotel accommodation closed-loop management action".

At the same time, the internal space of Bosch Suzhou Plant 1, Plant 2 and Plant 3 is extremely limited, and the hardware facilities cannot meet the closed-loop management of large-scale employees' factory accommodation, and its emergency response team has decided after research that all production lines will switch back to the original mode to meet production demand and order delivery.

In addition, in order to cope with potential emergencies, Bosch plants are equipped with beds, mattresses, futons and other daily necessities that can meet the needs of employees in one shift to stay in the factory area.

What is the impact of the chip industry chain?

It should be known that the previous chip manufacturers and ship Suzhou and the packaging and testing manufacturer Jinglong Technology have suspended production due to the epidemic. On February 14, chip designer Zhongying Electronics (300327, SZ) announced: "Suppliers located in Suzhou Industrial Park and ships Suzhou and Jinglong Technology production activities have been suspended, which will have an impact on the company's product production." Among them, Hejian Suzhou is its important supplier, and Jinglong Technology accounts for a small proportion of the company's business volume.

Judging from the follow-up disclosure released in Suzhou, no employee infection news was issued in Suzhou, and Jinglong Technology continued to have the news of employee infection.

From the perspective of the impact on the industrial chain, Hejian Suzhou has an 8-inch production line in Suzhou, and the OEM products are mainly consumer and automotive, industrial electronics, covering LCD drivers, microprocessors (MCUs), power management, fingerprint recognition, smart cards, identity recognition and other security products.

In 2021, the most serious lack of core in cars is the on-board MCU. The related production line of Hejian Suzhou involves on-board MCUs and may have an impact on downstream customers.

Jinglong Technology was founded in 2002 as a subsidiary of Gyeongwon Electronics, a semiconductor packaging and testing company, mainly engaged in semiconductor testing and packaging, including logic and mixed signal testing, memory testing, CMOS image sensor packaging, etc.

Daily economic news