We have been saying it this week and today we already have confirmation thanks to the investigation carried out by the firm Techcet, which affirms very interesting things that we already intuited and anticipated. And it is that despite the efforts of the industry and its steps forward in terms of production, the shortage of chips will remain with us for a longer time, too much…
Semiconductor forecasts are not good
The projection of the most important component for any chip, its wafers, is not being as expected and is insufficient for the current market despite the fact that shipments and therefore sales are slowing down. In other words, not enough chips and wafers are produced despite the fact that demand is falling, which is obviously a major problem because the forecasts with these semiconductors are far from being finished.
To give concrete data, the report states that in the most common wafers of 300mm they are launching nothing less than 7,200 units per month (WPM)a value that is close to what was expected, but by customizing chips to a higher level for customers, it seems that this is delaying part of the volume and manufacturers, despite sending less, are increasing demand.
We already saw this scenario yesterday and it could lead to inflation in the sector where supply is ahead of demand and then investment forecasts fail when the money has already been spent and put into practice, which would leave higher prices if we take into account everything said for the chips.
Scarcity, time and China
SEMI, the consortium of wafer manufacturers gives more encouraging data, but these have a double background at the same time. And it is that despite the fact that the capacity of the wafers of 200mm has reached the record of 6.9 million per month Since manufacturers are moving to these for their higher volume these figures are not really good as such.
Income will grow for these more than 14% in this 2022 and it is estimated that the production capacity will increase no less than one 21% until 2024, where it is now assured that supply and demand should begin to stabilize. In other words, the semiconductor crisis should be over late 2024 or early 2025 where there would be chips for everyone.
This is due in part to the fact that manufacturers’ investments in their FABs, such as new ones from Intel and TSMC, will be ready in at least the next two years, bringing more chips to market. But what if demand continues to fall? The PC market is in the doldrums, telecommuting has reached stable levels, the car industry is experiencing record sales in the negative, and something similar is happening with smartphones.
If this trend continues like this, the crisis would obviously not end in 2024 or 2025, but that would not cause prices to drop because, as we say, the investments will be in vain, the projects would already be started and a large part of the money would be spent for a capacity that would not be so necessary Therefore, in the end it would be the consumer once again who would have to pay a price premium to cover the losses, since no chipmaker can do anything about it except Intel.
To all this China is fishing in troubled waters, since its wafer FABs are selling more than ever supported by the demand that other manufacturers cannot cover at the moment, the problem is that the numbers still do not add up for now since the The country is facing a terrible wave of COVID-19 and, on top of that, the price of energy continues to skyrocket, which does not make it any easier that, despite the fact that more chips are sold, they drop in price. Is the perfect storm ahead?
