Since the second half of 2020, there has been a "chip shortage" in the global automobile supply chain, and it has intensified. On March 29th, Wolai Automobile decided to stop production for five working days from that day. On March 25th, F-car announced that a commercial vehicle factory in Ohio would stop production and cut the production of a truck factory in Kentucky. On March 24th, GM extended its production reduction plan in North America.
The reason for the reduction in production is the shortage of chips. In addition to the automobile industry, mobile phones, game consoles, security cameras and other industries are also caught in the "lack of core" dilemma. Apple said that the sales of some new high-end iPhone are limited by the shortage of parts. At the same time, major chip manufacturers have announced price adjustments.
Why does a small chip have such a huge impact? Why is the chip so important?
A chip the size of a fingernail is the "brain" of a smartphone or a computer, and there are countless transistors on it. Chip is the general name of semiconductor component products.
As the core component of most electronic equipment, the chip is known as "industrial food". It is not only widely used in smart phones, televisions, computers, automobiles and other electronic devices, but also indispensable in military, communication, remote control and other aspects, and is an indispensable foundation for 5G, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, and autonomous driving.
In the automotive field, the functional chips of traditional fuel vehicles are only suitable for local functions such as engine control, battery management and entertainment control. , can not meet the high data volume of intelligent driving related operations.
Nowadays, there are more and more smart cars, and the requirements for automobile chips are getting higher and higher. The global chip giant has launched a main control chip with AI computing power, which acts as the "brain" function of self-driving cars.
What caused the chip shortage? There are many reasons for the chip shortage.
1. There is a great demand for synchronous recovery of the automobile industry and the consumer electronics industry.
The COVID-19 epidemic once led to a decline in automobile sales, and the top management of the automobile industry cancelled the orders for automobile chips. However, the subsequent unexpected sales rebound caught automakers and chip makers off guard.
At the same time, since 2020, the shipments of electronic products represented by 5G mobile phones, desktop computers, tablet computers and notebook computers have increased significantly compared with previous years. According to the data of IDC and Digitimes, the global shipments of 5G smartphones will reach 65,438+09% of the global shipments in 2020, a substantial increase year-on-year. Global PC shipments reached 303 million units, up 13.47% year-on-year. Global shipments of tablet PCs reached1640,000 units, up 13.88% year-on-year.
2. The chip manufacturing process is becoming more and more complicated and the cost is getting higher and higher.
Chip production cycle is also relatively long, requiring thousands of processes, with an average cycle of 26 weeks. Number of leading chip companies. In recent years, the "Moore's second law" is widely rumored in the chip industry, that is, the cost of chip factories doubles every four years. So there are fewer and fewer fabs that can manufacture high-end chips.
3. The chip manufacturing capacity is insufficient.
Affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, manufacturers are relatively conservative in increasing production capacity. Recently, the mainstream wafer foundries in the industry, including TSMC, UMC, World Advanced, Lijidian and other advanced technologies and mature technologies, have reached full capacity, but they still cannot meet the market demand.
In order to increase production capacity, many companies have recently indicated that they want to increase investment, open new factories and increase new production lines. On March 24th, Intel announced that it would invest $20 billion to build two new chip manufacturing plants in Arizona. On April 1 day, TSMC said that it would invest10 billion US dollars to increase its production capacity in the next three years, and it would build new factories around the world. In addition, Samsung has drawn up a ten-year plan with a total expenditure of about11600 million dollars, and is considering expanding its semiconductor manufacturing business in Texas.
However, these measures cannot be transformed into production capacity in a short time. At present, the delivery cycle of equipment has been as long as one year, and it takes time from production to real productivity.
The whole industry is affected by the damage of supply chain.
Semiconductor industry chain
Semiconductor industry chain is a highly globalized industry chain, which must be completed in a cooperative way. Once the supply chain is damaged, the whole industry will be affected.
From June 5438 to June 2020 10, STT started the Big B project in several factories in Europe. Since mid-February, 20021,an earthquake has occurred in the sea near Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, which has affected Renesas Automobile Chip Wafer Factory. In February, 20021,Texas was forced to have a large-scale power outage due to the snowstorm, which directly impacted semiconductor companies including Samsung Electronics, Infineon and NXP. In March, a fire broke out in Renesas, Japan. Although the fire area is only 500, due to serious equipment damage, the recovery period is expected to be 4-6 months.
Since the second half of 2020, SMIC, the largest chip foundry in Chinese mainland, has been continuously sanctioned by the United States, further aggravating the global chip production tension.
A small chip is never simple. Some organizations predict that the worldwide chip shortage is expected to last for three or four quarters, and it is likely that the industry will not return to normal until 2022.