EE Times Asia’s Keesjan Engelen provides his insights on the shortages which are affecting the electronics industry and its impact on Asia’s electronics manufacturing scene.
“Component shortages are getting increasingly serious,” he says. “Voltage regulators that normally cost 50 cents have been selling for as much as $70. IC prices hiked up by 10x and lead times up to 52 weeks are not uncommon.
“Lower end ICs such as power management and microcontroller chips are experiencing the longest lead times as they are susceptible to both stockpiling and de-prioritization of capital allocation due to thinner margins. Many factories now have half their design staff dedicated to finding, and redesigning for, replacement components.”
The key contributing factors this situation are:
- High demand for home office/electronic entertainment due to work-from-home.
- EV cars contain much more ICs than conventional cars
- Factories in China are stockpiling as they use 60% of the worlds IC, but only manufacture 16% domestically. Anxiety over supply ensued following Trump’s decision to forbid Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd (TSMC) from supplying to Huawei.
He concludes: “If you need anything manufactured this year, you better—try to—order your silicon now.”
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