The shortage of chips has been the most frequently discussed topic in the semiconductor industry in the past two years. Among them, automotive chips and consumer chips have attracted much attention. Judging from the market situation in 2022, due to the weak demand in the consumer electronics market and the popularity of the new energy vehicle industry, the chip shortage has gradually entered the stage of structural core shortage.

Auto Chips are still in short supply, the quotations for foundries will increase slightly in 2023

The intelligence and electrification of new energy vehicles have driven up the demand for automotive chips. With major manufacturers expanding their factories and increasing production, as well as weak demand in some markets, the shortage of chips is gradually being alleviated. The situation of insufficient supply of automotive chips has also eased compared to before, but the situation is still not optimistic.

The semiconductor market in 2022 has moved from a comprehensive "chip shortage" to a structural "chip shortage" stage. The supply of consumer chips has eased, but many car companies' supply chains have been blocked or even interrupted. According to the German News Agency, it currently takes 6 months for chips to be delivered from order to delivery, which is twice the normal time. The shortage of automotive chips is expected to continue until 2024.

Source: Internet

Different from other application chips, most automotive-grade chips adopt mature process technology, have a long cycle time, and need to meet various strict specifications and standards. For the foundry price of automotive chips in 2023, some foundries will increase slightly.

At present, major chip foundries in the world have their own economic considerations when choosing to process other chips or automotive MCUs. Different wafer foundries have different proportions of automotive production capacity, and they have different insistence on prices, so they are yet to reach an agreement with their customers.

A large number of MCUs are used in automotive control modules, and its main suppliers include ST, Microchip, TI, Renesas, NXP, and Infineon, with a market share of more than 90%. The process nodes of automotive microcontroller are basically concentrated in the traditional range of 40-45mm. These six mainstream MCU manufacturers will basically outsource most of the IDM chip production to foundries, among which TSMC has a market share of 60%-70%.

According to data from AutoForecast Solutions (AFS), as of October 30, the global auto market has reduced production by about 3.905 million vehicles due to chip shortages. By the end of this year, it may increase to 4.2785 million. Due to the complexity of the automotive supply chain and the high cost of advanced process development, the cost of mature processes has also continued to rise in the past two years. Usually, the production cycle of automotive chips takes five months. The construction and expansion of factories will result in new factory operations, new equipment, and employee costs. Not only will the costs be high, but the supply time will also be extended.

Weak demand in the consumer electronics market

Since the beginning of this year, the demand in the consumer market has declined, and the shortage of consumer-grade memory, CIS sensors, display driver chips, LED driver chips, MCU, PMIC, PA, and filters have been alleviated. Among them, the prices of chips represented by consumer products such as panel driver ICs and memory chips have plummeted. Major memory chip manufacturers have reduced capital expenditures or cut production.

Source: Internet

As the "raw material" of the electronics industry, memory chips are used in almost all charged products. At present, memory chips account for about 30% of the output value of semiconductors, and the global market size keeps rising amid fluctuations.

In addition, according to the latest global 2022 MPU market forecast report released by Omdia, MPUs are mainly used on the PC side. This year, the epidemic has eased, 3C panic buying has evaporated, and the global PC high inventory problem has also impacted the MPU market. Global PC shipments totaled 74.3 million units in the third quarter of 2022, down 15% year-over-year.

This year's market conditions can be described as ups and downs. According to ICinsights, the IC market fall by 9% in the third quarter of 2022. Looking back at past records, the IC market has not seen a period of consecutive declines of more than three-quarters. The IC market is expected to resume growth from Q2 2023.

Enterprise Trends

Texas Instruments will add six production bases in the United States in about 10 years after 2022. 

Microchip plans to invest $3 billion to expand production in Oregon. 

Micron will invest $100 billion to build "the largest semiconductor manufacturing plant in the United States" in New York. 

Samsung launched a five-year chip development plan to triple production capacity and launch a 1.4nm process in 2027.

Intel, which has been hit hard this year, will announce a "targeted" layoff plan in November. 

ARM launched a layoff plan in the UK, with a layoff rate of up to 20%.

Renesas will complete the acquisition of Steradian, which provides 4D imaging radar solutions, in October 2022. Radar is a critical technology for ADAS, and the purpose of this acquisition is to leverage the high growth opportunities offered by the radar market, expand its automotive product portfolio with Steradian's radar technology, and expand its influence in the radar market.

Chip Dynamics

STMicroelectronics has introduced the L3751 synchronous buck controller, which is suitable for a variety of applications ranging from industrial equipment to pure electric light vehicles.

Microchip introduces the first family of PIC microcontroller (MCUs) based on the Arm Cortex®-M4F.

NXP announced the production of the second-generation 77GHz RFCMOS radar transceiver TEF82xx for ADAS and autonomous driving.

Infineon introduces the ICC80QSG single-stage pulse width modulation (PWM) controller for flyback topologies.

Vishay introduces the SiHK045N60EF, a new fourth-generation 600 V EF series fast body diode MOSFET.

Diodes have launched two precision power amplifiers (op-amps) AS2376Q and AS2333Q for different signal frequency conditions.

Melexis released the automotive LED driver chip MLX81143 to help realize dynamic lighting in the car.

Nexperia introduces the latest addition to its family of copper clip FlatPower (CFP) packaged diodes.