The shortage of chips has not really eased, and structural problems have tested the automobile production and sales market

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Jiwei Network news, "From the perspective of the entire chip industry, I think that since the epidemic, the shortage of automotive chips has not yet reached the time when it has really been alleviated. When talking about the reasons for the new round of OEMs to reduce production and stop production due to chip shortages, Dr. Wang Kai, director and CEO of Core Engine Technology, said so.

Since January, there have been a number of OEMs facing a new round of lack of core dilemma, among them, the United States Ford, GM two traditional car companies took the lead in issuing a serious production cut, production suspension warning, Toyota's factory in North America is also in a production suspension dilemma, it is expected that it will continue to reduce production of 100,000 vehicles in March, and the reasons for the reduction and suspension of production of these car companies are pointing to the shortage of chips.

In fact, since entering 2022, the lack of core in automobiles is still continuing, according to the latest report of the authoritative forecasting agency AFS, affected by the shortage of chips, as of February 14, the cumulative production of cars in the world has exceeded 527,000, far exceeding the previously expected 370,000 vehicles.

Chip shortages have not really been alleviated

Since the third quarter of last year, the mainstream view of the industry is that the shortage of automotive chips has gradually eased. After a two-quarter transition period, the lack of core in the automotive industry should have developed in a positive direction, but judging from the car sales in various countries in January this year, it seems that this is not the case.

According to MarkLines statistics, as of now, only a few countries and regions such as China (0.9%) have slightly increased their car sales year-on-year in January, while other countries and regions, including Brazil (-26.1%), South Korea (-19.2%), France (-18.6%), the United States (-9.8%), Japan (-14.2%), Israel (-23%), Taiwan (-17.9%), etc., have shown a year-on-year downward trend, and many countries have declined by more than double digits year-on-year.

What is even more puzzling is that around the Chinese New Year, there are a number of international OEMs that have broken out the situation of reducing production and stopping production due to the shortage of automobile chips, especially in North America, Ford, GM, Toyota's factories in North America, production cuts, suspension plans have even been arranged until April, and their normal automobile production has been seriously challenged. Toyota's annual vehicle production was also reduced from 9 million to 8.5 million.

In fact, the production cuts and production suspensions caused by the shortage of automotive chips have been staged again around the world. Recently, a Mercedes-Benz spokesperson also revealed that due to the shortage of car chips, the company has suspended orders for E-class cars in the German market, while suspending new orders for G-class cars throughout Europe.

According to the latest report of AutoForecast Solutions (AFS), an authoritative forecasting agency, as of February 14, due to the chip shortage, the cumulative production of cars in the world this year has exceeded 527,000, far exceeding the previously expected 370,000 vehicles.

From the actual data of the above automobile production and sales market, it is shown that the lack of cores has not been alleviated as expected, on the contrary, the lack of cores is continuing, and even intensified.

In this regard, Dr. Wang Kai, director and CEO of Core Engine Technology, analyzed: "According to the analysis of the epidemic situation and the characteristics of the automotive industry, from the perspective of the entire chip industry, I think that since the epidemic, the shortage of automotive chips has not yet been truly alleviated. ”

Dr. Wang Kai explained that the spread of the epidemic in 2020 around the world led to a decline in demand for the automobile consumer market and rapid transmission to the upstream chip industry, resulting in the production capacity originally used for automotive chip production being used in other fields.

In the post-epidemic era, the rapid recovery of the automobile consumer market has not had enough reaction time in the upstream industrial chain, and the automobile consumer demand delayed by the epidemic has superimposed on the new automobile consumer demand, resulting in a surge in consumer market demand; and after the production reduction of the manufacturing end due to the epidemic, the production capacity of the industrial chain has dropped significantly. One increase and one decrease, so that the growth rate of the demand side is not 3% to 5%, which may become several times the growth. The increase in production capacity is a slow process, and the new demand can only be postponed continuously.

"Although the output in 2021 has increased compared with 2020, the new capacity has not really played a easing role compared with the sharp reduction in production in 2020. In terms of chips, the chips purchased by the main engine factory from the high price on the market and the original supply chain chips have been used, and the actual output is still unable to meet the demand. Wang Kai said, "This will take at least 2 and a half years to digest this part of the demand, from this point of view, 2021 is unlikely to be truly alleviated, until this year's Q3, Q4 will begin to ease down." ”

Due to the shortage of supply caused by the superposition of demand, upstream semiconductor companies "they will not expand production capacity to meet explosive demand, because this is a short-term capacity shortage caused by the epidemic, if the expansion, the price paid is too large, not only there is a problem of increased procurement faced by expansion, but also the problem of capacity utilization after demand relief." Therefore, upstream enterprises choose to increase production on the basis of the original production capacity and gradually alleviate downstream demand. Dr. Wang Kai said, "At present, I have contacted several large OEMs, and they are still not very optimistic about the mitigation of chips." ”

The "four modernizations" of automobiles have exacerbated the shortage of automobile chips

The original demand superimposed on the new demand is only part of the reason for the shortage of automotive chips, in the interview, a number of industry experts believe that the four automobiles (electrification, intelligence, networking, sharing) is also an important reason for the shortage of automotive chips.

Previously, Wang Chuanfu revealed that the demand for semiconductors for electric vehicles has increased by 5-10 times compared with the demand for traditional cars, and at the same time, he said that electrification is only the first half, intelligence will be the second half, and the demand for semiconductors will be greater. At the same time, the mainland is also simultaneously carrying out the development of automobile networking and sharing.

Hu Yueqiang, director of industrial and automobile sales at Xinwang Micro Industry, said, "I think the main reason for the shortage of automotive chips is the increase in demand, whether it is new energy vehicles or traditional cars, the improvement of intelligence, are greatly increasing the demand for chips, a fuel vehicle originally only needed a small number of MCUs, but after intelligence, each component needs an MCU, which leads to a significant increase in consumption." In addition, for traditional cars, although the demand for mechanized chips has declined, the demand for electrified chips has increased significantly; and the Internet of Vehicles is also greatly increasing the demand for automotive chips. ”

In the view of Xinwang Weihu Yueqiang, in the past year, the development speed of new energy vehicles has far exceeded industry expectations, resulting in the growth rate of production capacity can not keep up with the market, "Infineon, Renesas, NXP is the main supplier of global automotive chips, of which Infineon's focus is power devices, but the development speed of new energy vehicles is too fast, and the growth of production capacity cannot catch up with the growth of demand." ”

Hu Yueqiang's point of view was also confirmed in a recent expert meeting minutes, SAIC Infineon said, "At present, the growth rate of IGBT production capacity is not as fast as the growth of orders, the expansion is not as smooth as the preset, and (it is expected that by 2023) it will still be in a state of shortage." ”

Wang Kai also holds the same view: "At present, the automotive industry is accelerating its development to the field of intelligence and networking, and there will be more and more demand for digital chips represented by intelligent cockpit chips and autonomous driving chips, and power chips represented by IGBTs." The automobile has high requirements for such chips, and the expansion of large factories is also very strict, and the new production capacity cannot meet the market demand in the short term, which also makes these chips face the problem of shortage. ”

What is more severe is that "the production capacity of each fab in 2022 has basically been booked, and in the current environment, the supply of companies that have successfully booked production capacity is relatively stable, while those without sufficient capacity will continue to be out of stock." Ma Weihua, deputy general manager of Jiefa Technology, said.

Xinwang Weihu Further pointed out that sumco Corp and other companies by 2026 wafer production capacity has been predetermined, not only makes it difficult for new chip demand to obtain sufficient capacity support, the chip market will also increase prices, which also makes the main engine factory and chip providers slightly different in the prejudgment of chip shortage mitigation, "The main engine factory does not want chips to continue to increase prices from the buyer's point of view, and the more optimistic the market shortage, the more favorable it is for them; on the contrary, the more favorable it is for chip manufacturers." At present, chip manufacturers mainly predict the trend of missing cores from the production capacity situation, and believe that it may continue to the first half of next year, which I think is closer to the actual situation. ”

Structural out-of-stocks may run through 2022

There are many types of automotive chips, mainly traditional chips such as MCUs, analog chips such as sensors, power devices, high-computing power digital chips, etc., and the production capacity of automotive chips is a gradually alleviated process in the recovery process. Wang Kai said, "The lack of any kind of chip is not enough, other devices have eased, but as long as there is a shortage of key chips, the car cannot be produced." ”

At present, mature process chips with high value and high profits are being alleviated at an accelerated rate, but "some simulated products, production capacity has not really recovered, which leads to the overall capacity problem can not be solved." Jeffer Technology Ma Weihua believes, "We expect that in 2022, automotive chips will show a very obvious structural shortage of stock, and some automotive chips will still be very nervous, especially analog automotive chips such as power supply and Tuner." This structural stock-out is likely to run throughout 2022. ”

In addition, with the development of the "four modernizations" of the car, the structure of the car's demand for chips is also changing, Wang Kai said, "the car 'four modernizations' have become an irreversible trend, the structure of the whole vehicle will also change, of which, the proportion of power devices will be larger and larger, the demand for smart chips will also be larger and larger, which will also bring new shortages." ”

According to Wang Kai, traditional large factories give priority to solving the problem of mass production of chips, and the slow pace of expansion will aggravate the structural shortage of chips. However, Dr. Wang Kai also said that in the fields of smart cockpit chips and high-computing chips, it is still in the stage of introduction and popularization, and there are a large number of companies like Core Engine Technology in the world that are rapidly promoting, and the current shortage of such chips is not as obvious as that of traditional chips.

Ma Weihua also said, "After such a long period of lack of core tests in the automotive industry, the main engine factories have been able to deal with the lack of cores in the car, and many main engine factories have taken the initiative to directly talk to automotive chip companies for direct supply, while developing alternatives for different chips, or introducing new models to reduce some functions that users do not need." As the solutions become more abundant, it is expected that the production and sales of automobiles will be smoother in 2022. ”

Due to the particularity of the long use cycle of the car, in Wang Kai's view, to solve the problem of structural shortage of chips, we must not only look at the present, but also look at this problem from the perspective of development, "Our intelligent cockpit chip, not only to consider the current satisfaction of the car machine function, but also to consider the needs of future OTA upgrades." "This is also an important reason for the choice of 7nm advanced technology for the intelligent cockpit chip of Core Engine Technology," At present, many (incremental chip companies) are considering the process below 28nm, and I believe that with the continuous investment of the industry, the pressure on chip production capacity will slowly ease." ”

It is worth noting that the global shortage of automotive chips in 2021 not only leads to a reduction in production by OEMs, but also increases procurement costs, but net profit in 2021, including Ford, General Motors and other car companies, hit a record high. For this unusual performance, Xin Wang Wei Hu Yueqiang believes that the impact of chip price increases on the head of the main engine factory is relatively small, and the average cost impact on a single vehicle is also small; and the major impact on net profit is to clear inventory, "last year's automobile production was reduced, but the market demand is strong, these main engine factories should take the opportunity to clear the inventory (car) almost; at the same time, last year, whether it is fuel vehicles or new energy vehicles, they have raised prices." It should be known that these inventories are purchased and produced according to the original material cost, but the sales are sold at the price after the price increase, which maximizes the profits of these OEMs. ”

In addition, "under the lack of core, these car companies use chips to produce hot models, which also accelerates the growth of sales and profits of these car companies; at the same time, the electrification transformation of these traditional car companies is also very rapid, such as Ford, whose electric vehicle sales have ranked second in the US market, and have also brought them good profit performance." Wang Kai analyzed. (Proofreader/James)