China's top chip company admits to massive silicon shortage felt around the globe
- Reference: 1616047330
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/03/18/silicon_shortages/
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The depth of the crisis was highlighted by Zhou Zixue, chairman of China's top silicon-slinger Semiconductor Manufacturing International Company (SMIC). Speaking at industry event SEMICON China, he said the tech industry is “suffering its worst-ever chip supply crunch,” as demand eclipses supply.
[1]
He [2]pleaded for global collaboration and openness at the Shanghai event, which is China’s biggest semiconductor technology trade fair.
SMIC supplies parts to both domestic and international customers, including Qualcomm, Broadcom and Texas Instruments. Its appearance on a [3]US blacklist in late 2020 in the middle of a global silicon wafer and chip shortage has led to the formation of [4]working groups and the issuance of open letters aimed at repairing global supply chains.
[5]
China's semiconductor self-sufficiency drive slid backwards in 2020 [6]READ MORE
SEMICON also heard pre-recorded remarks from CEOs of Applied Materials, Lam Research, KLA of the US, ASML of the Netherlands, and Tokyo Electron of Japan, all expressing their critical need for made-in-China chips, reported [7]Nikkei Asia .
The shortage is also felt in South Korea where the Korea Semiconductor Industry Association and the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association met and signed a memorandum of understanding to take matters into their own hands with domestic chip production.
MOTIE Vice Minister Park Jin-kyu (center) attended a signing ceremony for the memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association and the Korea Semiconductor Industry Association aimed at developing automotive chips domestically on March 17. [8]pic.twitter.com/WbRktyBFzC — MOTIE - Korea (@MOTIEKoreaEng) [9]March 18, 2021
While South Korea is the world's leading exporter of memory chips, its automotive semiconductors are almost exclusively imported. It's an undesirable situation as [10]car companies compete with tech products for chips amid both a chip drought and a [11]rise in export car sales .
South Korean Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki announced earlier this month that the country will invest more than US$180m by 2022 to develop automotive chip-making technology, reported [12]The Korea Herald .
Auto production in North America is not faring much better. Japanese car maker Honda is temporarily [13]shutting down most US and Canada plants for one week starting March 22 as it faces difficulties receiving parts. Blame has also been assigned to congestion at US West Coast ports and the manufacturing disruptions caused by [14]February power outages in Texas.
[15]
Another Japanese automaker, Toyota, is taking similar action citing “a shortage of petrochemicals” and “recent severe weather conditions.” ®
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[2] https://www.laoyaoba.com/html/share/news?source=app_android_v2&news_id=775286
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/21/smic_says_us_bans_bite/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/12/china_us_semiconductor_industry_technology_and_trade_restrictions_working_group/
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YFMyzKJfvcCmQxZVQCM5aAAAAEQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/22/ic_insights_china_silicon_market_share/
[7] https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tech/Semiconductors/China-chip-champion-urges-global-effort-to-ease-supply-crunch
[8] https://t.co/WbRktyBFzC
[9] https://twitter.com/MOTIEKoreaEng/status/1372368320842792962?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/10/honda_nissan_report_semiconductor_shortages/
[11] https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN2AT0V3
[12] http://www01.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20210310000323&ACE_SEARCH=1
[13] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-toyota/toyota-honda-cut-north-america-production-amid-supply-chain-woes-idUSKBN2B92BV
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/17/texas_blackouts_semiconductor_fabs/
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[16] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: How very cute
Exactly what I was going to say. Although I'd be more specific to Xi and the government, rather than the people. Jinping has not so much blotted the Chinese copy book, more like thrown it in the ink well.
"shortage of petrochemicals"
This statement took me a bit by surprise, because the oil price was low last year and has barely recouped. I suspected that perhaps because the demand for gasoline dropped, the refineries had reduced their production which in turn affected other areas.
But according to https://www.wsj.com/articles/one-week-texas-freeze-seen-triggering-monthslong-plastics-shortage-11615973401 the shortage in chemicals is due to the Texas freeze.
The February freeze that triggered mass blackouts in Texas led to chemical plant shutdowns that are disrupting global supply chains, causing a shortage of the raw materials needed for everything from medical face shields to smartphones.
Hopefully this is a short-lived shortage.
Re: "shortage of petrochemicals"
"Hopefully this is a short-lived shortage."
Don't you remember the 1990s and that factory fire that caused DRAM shortages for well over a year (turned out 1 factory produced 60% of the resins used worldwide in chip packaging and it burnt down)?
Then later in the 2000s flooding in Thailand disrupted HDD production (almost all the disk manufacturers had plants beside the river that were flooded) causing a spike in prices that took a couple of years to unwind?
Re: "shortage of petrochemicals"
Price collusion was also behind those incidents, and they got fines for it.
The lower the ammount of players, the higher the incentives to collude and fix prices.
How very cute
“He pleaded for global collaboration and openness”
Pretty rich coming from the Chinese