Toshiba Corp said it would not be able to meet demand for power-regulating chips for another year and, in certain cases, through the end of next year, offering a fresh warning for makers of vehicles, consumer electronics and industrial machines struggling with component shortages.
“The supply of chips will remain very tight until at least September next year,” said Takeshi Kamebuchi, a director in charge of semiconductors at one of the company’s units. “In some cases, we may find some customers not being fully served until 2023.”
Material shortages and demand outpacing output capacity are to blame for Toshiba’s inability to fulfill orders for a component that does not require advanced production technology and has typically been deemed a commodity, Kamebuchi said.
Photo: Reuters
Mature tech such as Toshiba’s power chips is cheaper than cutting-edge memory and sensors, but no less important for any electronic device. If the processor is the device’s brain, power-regulating silicon and circuitry serve as the heart and vascular system, helping to smoothly transmit electricity.
Toshiba plans to invest ￥60 billion (US$545 million) in the three years to March 2024 to boost output of power semiconductors, Kamebuchi said.
Options beyond that period include additional investment that may include building another factory. Despite some investor concern that demand will evaporate after the pandemic-fueled frenzy for electronics, Kamebuchi said the company is confident that orders will keep growing rapidly enough to sell out all its production lines for years to come.
Automakers including Toyota Motor Corp and Volkswagen AG have had to halt or reduce production due to widespread chip shortages.
Kamebuchi said that some chip manufacturers are prioritizing automakers in their production and Toshiba is similarly making every effort to minimize the impact on auto assembly lines.
“We usually receive orders weeks and months in advance, but we currently face increasing inquiries for half a year into the future and beyond,” he said. “Long-term contracts piling up like this is new to us.”
Video-game consoles are another prominent victim of the power chip shortage. Sony Group Corp said it was still confident it can sell more than 14.8 million units of the PlayStation 5 this fiscal year to match the pace of its predecessor, but the new console’s production in the April-June quarter lagged behind the PlayStation 4’s for the same period.
Nintendo Co’s Switch production has not been sufficient to serve customer demand, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa said.
The company intends to sell 25.5 million Switch units this fiscal year.
Game console production is vulnerable to a lack of components. Manufacturers are making daily calls to suppliers to ensure parts would reach assembly lines as promised, a top executive at an assembly contractor said.
Some console customers have told the assembler that they might alter their circuit board design to reduce the required components, the person said.
Toshiba is holding daily discussions on how best to allocate its limited output, with the company having to apologize to some customers for being unable to deliver in a timely fashion, Kamebuchi said.
“We consider which customer faces the most severe situation, such as the risk of the whole production line halting or the business getting obliterated without the supply of chips,” he said. “Game console makers are among the customers making the strongest demands and I’m sincerely sorry for their frustration as none of them have a 100 percent satisfaction.”
STRONG INTEREST: Analysts have pointed to optimism in TSMC’s growth prospects in the artificial intelligence era as the cause of the rising number of shareholders The number of people holding shares of chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) hit a new high last week despite a decline in its stock price, the Taiwan Depository and Clearing Corp (TDCC, 台灣集保) said. The number of TSMC shareholders rose to 2.46 million as of Friday, up 75,536 from a week earlier, TDCC data showed. The stock price fell 1.34 percent during the same week to close at NT$1,840 (US$57.55). The decline in TSMC’s share price resulted from volatility in global tech stocks, driven by rising international crude oil prices as the war against Iran continues. Dealers said
PRICE HIKES: The war in the Middle East would not significantly disrupt supply in the short term, but semiconductor companies are facing price surges for materials Taiwan’s semiconductor companies are not facing imminent supply disruptions of essential chemicals or raw materials due to the war in the Middle East, but surges in material costs loom large, industry association SEMI Taiwan said yesterday. The association’s comments came amid growing concerns that supplies of helium and other key raw materials used in semiconductor production could become a choke point after Qatar shut down its liquefied natural gas (LNG) production and helium output earlier this month due to the conflict. Qatar is the second-largest LNG supplier in the world and accounts for about 33 percent of global helium output. Helium is
China is clamping down on fertilizer exports to protect its domestic market, industry sources said, putting an additional strain on global markets that were already grappling with shortages caused by the US-Israeli war on Iran. China is among the largest fertilizer exporters — shipping more than US$13 billion of it last year — and it has a history of controlling exports to keep prices low for farmers. Shipments through the war-blocked Strait of Hormuz account for about one-third of the sea-borne supply. This month, Beijing banned exports of nitrogen-potassium fertilizer blends and certain phosphate varieties, sources said. The ban, which has not
DOMESTIC COMPONENT: Huang identified several Taiwanese partners to be a key part of Nvidia’s Vera Rubin supply chain, including Asustek, Hon Hai and Wistron Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), addressing crowds at the company’s biggest annual event, unveiled a variety of new products while predicting that its flagship artificial intelligence (AI) processors would help generate US$1 trillion in sales through next year. During a two-and-a-half-hour keynote address, Huang announced plans to push deeper into central processing units (CPUs) — Intel Corp’s home turf — and introduced semiconductors made with technology acquired from start-up Groq Inc. The company even said it was developing chips for data centers in outer space. At the heart of Huang’s speech was the message that demand for computing power
RSS