The drastic supply situation has been further compounded by natural phenomena such as
freezing temperatures in Texas, where many manufacturing plants are located, or accidents like the
fire in the Renesas factory in Japan.
Below you will find a market overview from Avnet Silcia covering pricing and lead time trends of different product categories.
|
Discrete | Pricing trend | Lead time trend | Lead time (weeks)
|
Small signal | ▲ | ▲ | 16+
|
RF | ▲ | ▲ | 16+
|
Power | Pricing trend | Lead time trend | Lead time (weeks)
|
FET | ▲ | ▲ | 26+
|
IGBT | ▲ | ▲ | 16+
|
Rectifier | ▲ | ▲ | 16+
|
Other power | ▲ | ▲ | 16+
|
Sensors & Actuators | Pricing trend | Lead time trend | Lead time (weeks)
|
| ▲ | ▲ | 26+
|
"Despite extremely challenging times, we believe there are signs of hope. Current shortages of raw materials may improve leading to stabilization of lead times in the second half of this year," writes the Avnet Silica Asset Team in their latest Trendliner where the company goes over price and lead time trends for the second quarter of 2021.
|
Opto | Pricing trend | Lead time trend | Lead time (weeks)
|
LEDs* | ► | ▲ | 9-16
|
Couplers | ▲ | ▲ | 16+
|
Fibre-optic | ▲ | ▲ | 16+
|
Infrared | ▲ | ▲ | 16+
|
Other Opto | ▲ | ▲ | 16+
|
Analog | Pricing trend | Lead time trend | Lead time (weeks)
|
Amplifiers & Comparators | ▲ | ▲ | 16+
|
Analog Interface | ▲ | ▲ | 16+
|
Power management | ▲ | ▲ | 16+
|
Converters | ▲ | ▲ | 16+
|
Advanced | ▲ | ► | 16+
|
Memory | Pricing trend | Lead time trend | Lead time (weeks)
|
NOR Flash | ▲ | ▲ | 26+
|
NAND Flash | ▲ | ▲ | 16+
|
eMMC | ▲ | ▲ | 16+
|
EEPROM | ▲ | ▲ | 36+
|
DRAM | ▲ | ▲ | 26+
|
SRAM | ▲ | ► | 9-16
|
Solid State Drives | ▲ | ▲ | 16+
|
The company points to the ramp up of investments to boost production capacity, which will help in the longer term. But as the Avnet Silica says, there is light at the end of the tunnel, but the tunnel is still very long and the light very dim.
|
MOS Micro Logic | Pricing trend | Lead time trend | Lead time (weeks)
|
MPU | ▲ | ▲ | 26+
|
MCU 8 bit & lower | ▲ | ▲ | 26+
|
MCU 16 bit | ▲ | ▲ | 26+
|
MCU 32 bit & higher | ▲ | ▲ | 26+
|
Automotive MCU | ▲ | ▲ | 26+
|
DSP | ▲ | ▲ | 16+
|
Programmable Logic | Pricing trend | Lead time trend | Lead time (weeks)
|
| ▲ | ▲ | 26+
|
Standard Logic | Pricing trend | Lead time trend | Lead time (weeks)
|
Timing products | ▲ | ▲ | 16+
|
Interface | ▲ | ▲ | 16+
|
Connectivity | ▲ | ▲ | 16+
|
Standard Logic | ▲ | ▲ | 16+
|
And speaking of light at the end of the tunnel. Here are a handful of sizable investments in semiconductor manufacturing that Evertiq has covered.
In late January, Newport Wafer Fab, Infineon’s former manufacturing fab in South Wales, announced
its intention to expand its production capacity.
SkyWater Technology, a US pure play foundry which has been very vocal about the need for a secure domestic chip production, put words into action as it announced that it would
expand its operations with a manufacturing fab in Florida.
Infineon announced that it would increase its investment in manufacturing capacity and
bring forward the starting date for the new power semiconductor plant in Villach, Austria to the last quarter of the current fiscal year.
In late February Microchip said it would invest
invests USD 20 million to set up a new Irish development centre in Cork.
In March, Tower Semiconductor say it was planning a
capacity expansion for 200mm and 300mm to answer the exceeding demand
GlobalFoundries joined in and said it would
invest USD 1.4 billion to increase increase production at three of its manufacturing facilities located in Germany, Singapore and the US.
Bosch reached a milestone in early March as its massive wafer fab in Dresden was finally
ready for production. Nanox announced its intention to scale up production with a new plant in South Korea
Chinese foundry SMIC announced that it had entered into an agreement with the Shenzhen Government under which it
intends to develop and operate a 28nm fab. In mid March Toshiba said that the company is gearing up to
start construction of a new 300mm wafer fabrication facility.
And lets not forget the news that
Intel will spend USD 20 billion to build two new chip plants in Arizona, creating more than 3’000 new – permanent – high tech jobs.
And at the end of last month
Powerchip Semiconductor broke ground on new 12-inch fab in the Tongluo Science Park in Taiwan.
And just a few days ago,
TSMC announced that it is planning to invest USD 100 billion over the course of three years.