Ran Dimension (ID: chaintruth) Original
Ran Finance produced
Author | Yan Junwen Zhao Chenxi Feng Xiaoting
Zhu Xiaoyu Zhang Lin
Edited by | Rao Xiafei
How far is the global "chip shortage"? In broad daylight, even the robbers had the idea of chip .
According to Hong Kong Wen Wei Po , on the afternoon of June 16, a "chip robbery" occurred on the streets of Hong Kong, and a high-priced chip transported by a logistics company was robbed.
"It's nothing strange. Now chips are rare." In the view of Wang Yi, the head of the security monitoring equipment manufacturer, the news of robbers robbing chips is not a strange thing. "The world is robbing chips."
Wang Yi is now worried about chips every day. "In the past, suppliers came to us to receive goods, but now we are asking them to give them some chips everywhere."
Wang Yi's production capacity is not large, but he was also not spared in the global wave of chip shortage. Although Wang Yi has tried every means to find the chip components needed for his equipment, he still has to face the next "coreless" situation, which means that if this situation is not improved, his factory will have to stop production until the chips return to normal supply.
is not just Wang Yi. Since the second half of 2020, the global dilemma of "chip shortage" has become increasingly serious. More and more industries have to face the situation of production cuts or even suspensions.
On June 15, CEO of Geely Holding Group and CEO of Zekr Intelligent Technology, Anconghui revealed in an interview with the First Financial reporter, "Due to the tight supply of chips and core components, all delivery orders for Zekr 001 this year have been sold out. From now on, we have to stop receiving intention gold ."
In fact, it is not just Zekr. Starting from January 2021, automobile manufacturers including Volkswagen , Honda , Ford and other cars have successively announced production cuts or shut down some factories due to insufficient chip supply. Statistics show that in the first quarter of 2021, about 1 million cars were forced to postpone production.
Nowadays, this wave of "chip shortage" has not only not improved, but is also becoming more and more intense, and has spread to the consumer electronics industries such as mobile phones and panels. In Wang Yi's words, "the entire semiconductor supply chain has been affected."
In the second half of 2020, after Huawei fell into shock due to the "chip ban", "chip shortage" came to other mobile phone manufacturers in another way.
Xiaomi Vice President Lu Weibing sighed when he mentioned the chip on Weibo, "Oh..." On May 21, he posted on Weibo that if the Snapdragon 888 processor was not out of stock, ( Xiaomi 11 series ) sales far exceeded the (3 million ). He expects that the cycle of chip shortage will not be too short, and it will definitely not be able to alleviate this year. If you are optimistic next year, the first half of the year. Someone asked, will the price of chips become more and more expensive? Lu Weibing answered in one word, yes.
Just a few days ago, Samsung has also suspended the shipment of Galaxy S21 FE. This is the popular version of its high-end series of mobile phones. The reason for the suspension is the lack of chips.
Even chip designers complain that there is not enough goods. Qualcomm China manager said in public that due to the shortage of stock, Qualcomm's own sales are very hard to chase after by customers every day, and this situation will continue for a while. "If the semiconductor industry is not short of stock at this time, then your products may be too poor." What exactly is the reason for
that causes this global "chip shortage" trend?
In Wang Yi's view, the "core shortage" situation is caused by many reasons."On the one hand, due to the impact of the epidemic, production capacity has been impacted to varying degrees. For example, the production of chips must use Japanese chemical materials, but only two factories can produce this material, and the epidemic once affected its start-up; at the same time, global consumer electronics consumption has increased inversely, resulting in an imbalance in supply and demand. On the other hand, chip manufacturers have successively closed the production of 8-inch wafers to convert the production line into a 12-inch production line, resulting in a shortage of 8-inch wafers." Of course, there are deeper reasons, such as the stockpiling of large manufacturers.
Under the influence of "chip shortage", price increase is imperative. Just on June 15, according to Taiwan media reports, wafer foundries such as TSMC and UMC in Taiwan are expected to continue to increase in prices in the third quarter of 2021, with a maximum increase of 30%.
"In the production and material use process, the price increase of chips has long increased by more than 30%. The spot stock we found has three times the price, and even higher." Price increase is a fact that Wang Yi has to accept, "As long as you can get the goods, price increase is nothing. Without goods, it means that production has to be stopped."
In order to cope with the chip shortage crisis, in early May, TSMC, the world's largest wafer foundry, announced its production expansion plan, and they plan to invest US$2.8 billion to expand the production of the 28-nanometer chip process. SMIC invested twice to expand the 28nm chip production line. After the expansion, the monthly production capacity of 28nm chips will exceed 100,000 pieces.
"Although this is good news, it will take a long time for this situation to be truly alleviated." Wang Yi believes that at least before 2022, the situation of "chip shortage" will continue. "It depends on who can survive until the situation improves."
As Wang Yi said, the situation is very unoptimistic. More and more manufacturers, especially small and medium-sized manufacturers, have fallen into production dilemma due to the "chip shortage", and they urgently need the chips to be able to resume supply as soon as possible to solve the urgent problem. "If I continue like this, I can only change careers." This is the complaint from a equipment manufacturer to his friends when he was helpless, and it is also the embarrassment of many small and medium-sized manufacturers.
Ran Finance has come into contact with several people in the electronics industry who have suffered from "chip shortage" in 2020 and now. A new energy industry manufacturer with a trend of popularity doubled its production capacity, but could not buy chips. The chip factory production line that he had finally discovered was contracted by a car manufacturer; a charging pile company was forced to use domestic chips instead of imported chips, which was a long process and the cost of trial and error was very high; a computer dealer went to urge the goods, and the other party told him to wait for half a year. After 6 months, the other party still told him to wait.
chip orders were snatched away by car manufacturers, and they could not buy even if the price increased
Gao Hu | 37 years old New energy equipment manufacturer
Our company is a new energy equipment manufacturer. In the past two years, new energy has been at the forefront, driving the company's performance, and the demand for chips has also increased exponentially. For example, a 28-nanometer microcontroller has a usage of 20,000 pieces in 2020, and the demand in the first half of this year has reached nearly 24,000 pieces. But what gave me a headache was that I couldn’t get the goods at all. Later, when I inquired, it was said that this production line had been booked by the car manufacturer and was no longer supplied to the outside world, which led to repeated delays in delivery of our orders.
Starting from November 2020, we have begun to receive notifications that the delivery cycle of chip agents will be extended. At the beginning of this year, I felt the chip shortage. At the beginning, you can still buy it in the spot market with a little price increase. By April, there was no power management chip , microcontroller, and mos . There was no one that was out of stock. It was normal to increase the price by 40%. Many of them directly increased by several times or dozens of times. Many of them could not find the goods on the market and could not buy them even if they had money.
The entire order was postponed, and the customer urged us, and we urged the procurement department, and the procurement department could only look for chips all over the world. Now the company is also storing a large amount of inventory on the market for commonly used chips to ensure subsequent company operations and delivery.On the one hand, we are also looking for alternatives and verification, but this process is long and the cost is extremely high.
Foreseeable, this shortage of core price increase will last for one or two years. Not only is our company short of chips, but some small companies in our peers cannot get chip orders directly, and they have no choice but to stop for a day and see who can persist until the day of relief.
The ones we use on our equipment are basically imported chips, and we are also looking for domestic substitutes. In the near future, whether it is SMIC or other chip foundry manufacturing companies, they are working hard to expand their factories.
Recently, TSMC Nanjing factory expanded its 28-nanometer production line, and I support it. In the short term, the new factory has brought a catfish effect to domestic chip factories. Although 28nm is not the latest process, it is considered a high-tech industry for chip industry with large investment, long cycles and high technological content. After all, there are only a handful of domestic 28nm mass-produced ones. In the past, catfish were at the street corner, but now catfish have come to the doorstep, which can inspire domestic manufacturers to catch up.
In recent years, the trade war has made many technology companies feel a sense of crisis and pay attention to shortcomings, and have also increased their corresponding investment. I think capital is not a problem, the key is talent, because chips require long-term accumulation to improve, but for the mainland, due to the late development, lack of time accumulation, coupled with the suppression of the United States and its allies. Therefore, only talents with rich experience can help promote the development and catch up with mainland chips.
What I think about every day is when the next batch of raw materials will arrive
Guyue | 38 years old The boss of the online communications company
chip is the lifeblood of the communications industry, and I happen to be a company that makes online communications products. In the second half of 2020, we began to experience chip shortages, which became even more prominent by October. After the out of stock of
chips, the price increase followed, which brought us a huge impact. After the
chip is out of stock, our factory cannot operate at full capacity, which will cause us to lose some of our market share. We are not short of orders, but upstream companies have shortage of raw materials, which can only meet half or two-thirds of our production capacity needs, which makes us unable to plan production as before.
Before, we found the source company to get the goods. After placing the order, the other party would immediately reply to the time and price. Many times, the source company would even tell us in advance how much goods there were and ask us if we needed them. It’s different now. Now we are asking the source companies to ship the goods to us. Often, when we place an order, the source company cannot reply to the delivery time and specific price. We can only tell us that it is possible in 3-5 months. While
is out of stock, chips are also generally price increase. This has greatly reduced the gross profit margin of our equipment. Take the Netcom main control chip , which makes switch , as an example. Last year, the purchase price from Taiwan was around 4 yuan. Now we basically cannot get source goods, and the purchase price of channel goods is around 20 yuan. The prices of some more scarce chips have risen to 10-20 times.
lost market share and gross profit margin decreased. Taking out one of them alone may have a fatal impact on enterprises, especially small and medium-sized enterprises. Small and medium-sized enterprises are struggling, and there are no more people who have stopped production and closed down.
causes chip shortages in many ways. The impact of foreign sanctions in China cannot be ignored. The main control chips of our equipment are imported from Taiwan, and they are the first to be affected.
On the one hand, due to the impact of the epidemic, the supply and demand pattern has changed. The main supply of semiconductor products are the United States, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Malaysia . Under the influence of the global epidemic, the product supply structure has changed. At the same time, the structure of the demand side has also changed. Affected by the epidemic, users' consumption demand has increased significantly, and electronic product sales have been booming.
On the other hand, due to foreign sanctions, the balance of the original industrial chain has been broken. Some large enterprises and other large-scale stocks have been prepared, which has prepaid capacity demand for the next one to two years, and small and medium-sized enterprises are also competing for the remaining factory production capacity. As a result, middlemen and end users quickly sensed the chip shortage, causing panic to stock up and entering a vicious cycle.
Another thing is that under the guidance of national policies, enterprises' demand for foreign electronic components is gradually turning back to China. China's 14th Five-Year Plan has introduced a series of new policies to develop its own semiconductor industry and respond to restrictions from the US government.
Facing the current "core shortage" situation, we have also made many solutions.
In response to the shortage of supply, we avoid out-of-stock chips and redevelop new products. This requires the company to have certain product development capabilities. Faced with changes in market out of stock chips, companies must be able to respond to market changes quickly and always have alternative solutions. Sometimes we even develop three or four products at the same time.
In order not to lose market share, we have opened up a new product line. Products that have been marginalized or have been discontinued due to low gross profit margins will be put back into production to maintain the basic market and users and ensure factory production capacity.
With our efforts, the company's profit has increased compared with the same period last year and is temporarily in the profit stage. But the challenge always exists. The biggest problem is that the information is unclear. This time the shortage is different from the past. If you cannot predict it, you cannot plan. What I care most about now is when the next batch of raw materials will arrive.
imported chips are out of stock, so I can only choose domestic chips to replace
Wang Qiang | 40 years old A worker in a car charging pile company
I am an employee who manufactures electric car charging pile , and I have been working for about six years. Our main business is to produce charging piles for electric vehicles. Our customers include , BYD, , Volkswagen and other large car companies, with a annual output of about hundreds of thousands of units.
charging piles are generally divided into DC piles and AC piles. AC piles are also called slow charging. The power is relatively small, and the DC piles have a large power. The high ones may reach hundreds of KW ( kilowatts ). We will make different types of charging piles according to customer needs. Generally speaking, households are AC piles, and public places are DC piles.
Many people may have doubts, does charging piles necessarily require chips? In fact, charging pile chips are crucial and are related to the safety of people and the public. There are many chips in the charging pile, including control chips, communication chips, and isolation chips. Like our devices, they generally use foreign chips such as NXP (NXP ) and STMicroelectronics (ST).
If there is no communication chip, the charging pile cannot communicate with the car. If there is no isolation chip, there is no isolation between strong and weak current, which will lead to the risk of user electric shock or weak current circuit chip being broken down. For example, the voltage of the DC charging pile is very high, reaching 400-500V ( volts ), which is very dangerous. Without a control chip, the charging pile cannot control and detect the charging status of the car.
Since the end of last year, we have faced a large-scale chip shortage. chips such as NXP (NXP) and STMicroelectronics (ST) will be out of stock. Before
, we cooperated with customers very stably, and everything changed after the chip was missing. When the supply of chips is the most in short supply, we go to purchase, but the supplier does not provide shipments, and the delivery cycle is extended indefinitely. We buy goods at a price of several times or even dozens of times. At the same time, we test and replace materials. Testing and testing are actually remade and produced charging piles. It is conceivable how much pain it has brought to our industry. We may continue to use domestic chips in the future, such as chips produced by Zhaoyi Innovation (GD) and Huada Semiconductor.
As far as I know, it is not just us, but many video codec chips, such as components applied to Hisim , are very short of stock, and some switch chips and automotive chips are also very out of stock. Generally, you can only purchase at a higher price, or use alternative computing power instead, such as using Cambrian chips.
Of course, the maturity of domestic chip products is definitely not as good as that of foreign chips. Foreign chips have advantages in complete supporting facilities, technical support, development documents, including bug patches, and chip stability. However, with the current global chip shortage, choosing an alternative is much better than shutting down production and shutting down work.
Moments are out of chips every day, and they are all numbing
Zhang Song | 36 years old, founder of fitness hardware company
I am the founder of a sports and fitness hardware startup company. The products we produce mainly include fitness equipment hardware, fitness singles, wearable devices, etc., with sales of millions of pieces a year, mainly for overseas markets. Our chips mainly use controller chips and circuit management chips produced by foreign chip manufacturers. Before the chip shortage of
, our company operates, cash flow, and is normal, and the supplier provides sufficient sources of supply.
About March 2020, mainstream wafer manufacturers in the world lowered their sales expectations, and the general wafer manufacturers' production cycle is 6-18 months. In other words, wafer manufacturers start to cut production and the production cycle becomes longer. Last year, China's manufacturing industry was returning strongly, so the global supply chain did not shrink, but demand surged, which caused a resource run.
core shortage actually started in the second half of last year. By February this year, the tension in the supply and demand relationship of the industrial chain reached its peak. When the chip shortage was the worst, the price rose several times, and our team was shocked at that time. Price increases mean higher costs. Products with high gross profit are not bad, while products with low gross profit are very uncomfortable for startups. During that time, I was out of stock on my Moments every day, and now I feel numb and I don’t feel anything anymore.
In fact, since the end of last year, our company has discovered signs of chip shortage very early and has urgently negotiated with many chip suppliers. In March this year, we have completed the preparation of materials in advance. Some core chips will arrive in October, while some chips are still in short supply. Many companies are also using these chips. The degree of shortage of supply should be the same. TSMC, a chip foundry company, may be caused by the Taiwan epidemic. TSMC may face production suspension at any time. Once production is suspended, it will have an impact on its entire operating cost and overall profits. Therefore, TSMC must adjust its OEM price. Of course, TSMC mainly produces chips below 30nm, which may have limited impact on us, because the chips we use do not have high requirements for foundries.
I am generally optimistic about the lack of cores. In fact, the first half of each year is a small off-season for our sales. In the absence of chips in the entire industrial chain, we try our best to ensure a certain gross profit. Our current main goal is to "less discounts."
I saw some sports and fitness colleagues who stopped production or even went bankrupt due to chip shortage. I think the relationship is not strong enough, and they cannot get the support of the original factory or first-level agents, or they are not prepared for chip shortage. Another possibility is that the manufacturer's volume is too large and the product sales are booming, resulting in the production capacity not keeping up.
The lack of core of the car directly affected my salary
Wang Changyuan｜37 years old Great Wall Motor sales person in a certain area
I worked for Great Wall Motor Company for three years, mainly responsible for the sales of its brand Ola . The monthly sales performance is not bad, and the income is considerable in second- and third-tier cities. But since the "core shortage" wave occurred at the end of last year, everything has changed.
Although the "chip shortage" at the end of last year has affected the production capacity reduction of several of our Oula's cars, fortunately, the inventory is sufficient, so there is no obvious change when facing the C-end. The situation was different at the beginning of this year. Due to the lack of chips in the automotive industry, insufficient factory production capacity, and delayed delivery, this directly affects sales.
By April this year, the shortage of supply of Great Wall automotive chips was relatively serious, and the media also revealed that the two major production bases in Chongqing Yongchuan and Hebei may face suspension in the next few months. In fact, Great Wall Motors' chip supply chain is indeed tight, but factory production has only been affected to a certain extent and has not been stopped.
Take the three cars of Great Wall Ora Black Cat/White Cat/Haomao as an example. The factory has been purchasing chips and actively producing them, but the chips are scarce and the supply of production capacity is insufficient, so customers still cannot buy existing cars. Moreover, you will have to wait at least three months for the whole process, which will directly affect consumers' purchasing passion.
Now our exhibition hall has even sold several sample cars, and the exhibition cars are out of stock. My performance commission has also been affected, and my monthly salary has been greatly reduced.
If we follow the normal pace, our sales will be better than now. What's more, the country is vigorously developing new energy vehicles, and even local governments are actively promoting the popularization of new energy vehicles, so the sales of new energy vehicles should soar. But now, consumers will more or less retreat and turn to other brands when facing reservations three months in advance.
and even some consumers who prefer the Ora series have chosen other brands of new energy vehicles. After asking, I found out that car companies such as BYD and GAC have much less delivery time than us. It can be seen that the shortage between car companies and car companies is still different. Some are serious "chip shortages", while others are barely enough.
Nowadays, the "chip shortage" in the automotive industry has been going on for a long time. It is not uncommon to mention which car company has stopped production due to "chip shortage". This situation will continue for one to two years in the future.
At the same time, "chip shortage" is a problem that car companies around the world have to face. In January this year, I saw news that Honda, Volkswagen, Ford and other automakers have cut production or shut down some factories due to insufficient chip supply. At the end of March this year, NIO was temporarily suspended for 5 days due to chip shortage. No matter how well the reasons explained by each company, "chip shortage" will lead to the automotive company's factory capacity not keeping up, which will ultimately affect the car sales and the performance of terminal sales personnel.
computer chips are short, and prices cannot be purchased. Store sales continue to decline
Deng Kang | 41 years old Personal computer distributor
I have sold computers in the computer city for more than ten years. Although the computer market has tried to face price increase pressure due to the shortage of LCD panels, batteries and other accessories, it will not suddenly increase without warning like last year, and the impact period will not last as long as this time the chip shortage lasts.
Impressed that the entire market suddenly rose from July and August last year. Before this, I had no news until later when I ordered the equipment, I was told that the equipment price increased.
Last year, the demand for home office and distance learning stimulated has driven the growth of demand for personal computers. Before the epidemic, I could only sell 100 computers a month, but after the epidemic, whether I contacted me for purchases or required to assemble computers, there were much more customers than before, and I could sell more than 30 more computers a month. So after learning that the price has increased, I cannot reduce the purchase volume, after all, the demand is very strong. After purchasing at a high price, I will transfer the cost directly to the consumers.During that time, the market was also very different from before. Consumers would compare shopping and think it was not suitable, and they could also say that they could wait for e-commerce promotions such as Double 11. But in the second half of last year, the situation was completely different. Although consumers will complain about the sudden price increase of 300 or 500 yuan for the product, most consumers will still pay for the price.
One or two months have passed, but the price has not dropped, but it is still rising. It’s okay if the price increases, but high-end game consoles are still out of stock. At the end of last year, due to price increases and out of stock, the business in my store continued to decline. After the outbreak of the epidemic, more than 100 computers were sold per month, but after October last year, due to the out of stock, only a few dozen units were sold per month. For this reason, I have specially contacted brand agents to understand the situation, but the other party's reply to me is always "chip shortage" and "chip price increase"...
Compared with foreign brands, domestic brands are more likely to be out of stock. Because domestic computer chips mainly rely on imports, but due to the impact of the epidemic, the imbalance in supply and demand of chips has led to continuous price increase, so computers naturally raise prices. It has been almost a year since the price increase last year and the chip problem has not been solved yet. Affected by the price of parts, computer manufacturers are also raising product prices.
I am very worried now. There are many customers who are interested in buying computers in the store, but the products they mentioned are either I can’t get the goods, or the price of getting goods from other channel merchants has to increase at least 20% on the original basis, which customers can’t afford.
My store sales have been declining for several months. Every day when I am free, I ask brand agents to find out the situation, but the other party’s reply to me was not accurate. At the beginning of the year, it was said that the chip production lead time would take half a year, and the situation would improve in half a year; but June came and said that the chip processing plants were all abroad. The reason for the epidemic abroad affected shipments, and the situation would improve at the beginning of next year...
* The title and accompanying pictures are all from Visual China. In the article, Wang Yi, Gao Hu, Zhang Ge, Wang Qiang, Deng Kang, Gu Yue and Wang Changyuan are all pseudonyms
*Disclaimer: Under no circumstances, the information or opinions expressed in this article do not constitute investment advice to anyone.
