Yesterday, a magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck the sea off Hualien County, Taiwan, the largest earthquake in Taiwan 25 years after the 1999 "921" earthquake.
Everyone is very concerned about and concerned about the disaster relief situation in the Taiwan region.
As of 10 p.m. on April 3, the Hualien earthquake has killed nine people and injured more than 1,000 people.
As a financial self-media, the Positive Solution Bureau would like to talk about the impact that the Taiwan earthquake may have on the global semiconductor supply chain today.
The reason why we talk about this topic is because Taiwan's weight in the semiconductor industry chain is too heavy.
The industrial chain of the semiconductor industry mainly includes three major links: upstream material and equipment supply, midstream chip design and manufacturing, and downstream terminal applications.
Semiconductor industry chain
Taiwan's semiconductor industry chain has a layout from design, manufacturing, packaging and testing to equipment and materials.
Among them, OEM and packaging testing are the strongest.
Let's look at the foundry industry first, the world's first.
According to the 2023 global chip foundry market share released by well-known institutions, among the top 10 chip foundry companies in the world, Taiwan occupies 4 seats, and TSMC and UMC occupy the top two.
The bureau noted that in 2022, the combined market share of these four Taiwanese companies was 74.47%, which will increase to 75.41% in 2023.
The world's top 10 exclusive chip foundries in 2023
This shows that the market share is concentrating on Taiwanese companies.
TSMC also has 2 factories in Chinese mainland, but the main production capacity, especially the cutting-edge process, is still concentrated on the island.
Look at the packaging and testing industry, the world's first.
According to the 2023 Global Outsourcing Packaging and Testing Top 10 list, among the top 10 companies, 5 are in Taiwan, with a total market share of more than 35%.
In 2023, it will rank top 10 in the global outsourcing closed beta
Taiwan is also the region with the highest concentration of semiconductor packaging and testing industry in the world.
In terms of the design industry, Taiwan is slightly weaker.
According to the top 10 global IC design companies released by TrendForce in the third quarter of 2023, MediaTek, Novatek, and Realtek in Taiwan are three companies on the list.
Top 10 IC design companies in the world in the third quarter of 2023
Although the total market share of Taiwanese companies is not high, it is also the most capable of fighting except for American companies.
Strictly speaking, display panels do not belong to the semiconductor industry, but they are inseparable from semiconductors.
In the global LCD panel market, Taiwan has a market share of 20.5%.
Global LCD TV panel market share in 2023
In this way, if you count the display panel, Taiwan's weight in the global semiconductor industry will add a lot.
The heavier the weight, the greater the impact on the global market once the operation fluctuates.
Semiconductor manufacturing is an extremely precise and environmentally sensitive industry, and a short disruption can cause serious damage.
A power outage, earthquake or fire event in Taiwan could bring a butterfly effect and impact the global semiconductor supply chain.
For example, in 2016, a magnitude 6.7 earthquake struck Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
Nearly 80 semiconductor and optoelectronic device companies were affected, and TSMC's two factories were suspended, and wafer shipments were delayed by 10-50 days, resulting in a tight supply of global mobile phone chips.
In another example, in 2018, a 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck Hualien, Taiwan.
Affected by this, there is a short-term shortage of wafers and components, and the market panics about capacitors, resistors, diodes and other products, resulting in worse terminal supply.
Therefore, after the earthquake in Taiwan, the most concerned are casualties, followed by TSMC, ASE and other semiconductor manufacturers.
TSMC said that after the earthquake, some factories were evacuated, and personnel are currently returning to work one after another, and the details are yet to be confirmed.
UMC responded that the machine was partially shut down, the engineering personnel were working hard to take inventory and resume the machine, and the personnel of Zhuke and Nanke were evacuated according to the operating standards, and the factory facilities were normal.
UMC responded that it had suspended the operation of machinery and equipment at some factories and evacuated some facilities in the Hsinchu and Tainan centers.
At present, the impact of the earthquake on semiconductor companies is not large.
I wish Taiwan's personnel safety and industrial stability.