Lack Of "Core" Report: April Price Rise Again

"The drive IC is really out of stock, and will continue for a period of time, and the current price increase is about 10% - 15% Many panel insiders told the 21st century economic reporter.

In the second quarter, the price rise caused by the lack of core is still continuing. Enterprises in the industrial chain have to face the problem of upstream chip shortage and price rise every day, and even directly affect the production line. On April 8, media reports said Apple delayed the production of some macbooks and iPad products due to supply shortage. Among them, the installation of components on the printed circuit board was delayed before the MacBook was finally assembled, and the assembly of some iPads was delayed due to the shortage of monitors and display components.

In this special period, the chain reaction of imbalance between supply and demand is still spreading. Since April, many semiconductor companies have started a new round of price increases. According to incomplete statistics by reporters, more than 20 enterprises have implemented price increase since April 1, ranging from wafer factories, material factories to chip design factories. On the other hand, the relationship between supply and demand of semiconductors is still in the process of adjustment. Some products have a narrower growth rate, while others have a higher degree of shortage. Many practitioners expect that the situation will ease in the third quarter of this year at the earliest.

Semiconductor manufacturers keep rising

At present, this year's price hike has involved the upstream and downstream of the semiconductor industry chain. In the manufacturing sector, the prices of wafer manufacturers are rising recently. In an email to chip design companies, TSMC president Wei Zhejia wrote that there will be no price increase in the next four quarters, but in the past years, TSMC will have preferential prices. Therefore, in the industry's view, it is a disguised price increase, but under the current situation, it is a measure of restraint not to raise prices substantially. Previously, SMIC has informed its customers that the price of the whole line will be increased from April 1, and orders already placed but not online will be subject to the new price.

In terms of upstream materials, Xinyue chemical, the world's largest silicon wafer manufacturer, announced in early March that the price of silicon wafers would be increased by 10% - 20% from April 1, due to the rising cost of raw material silicon. Shanghai silicon industry, a domestic silicon wafer manufacturer, recently said that the price of some kinds of silicon wafers has increased, and the orders have exceeded the supply capacity.

On April 7, ADI issued a price increase notice to agents, saying that due to the increasing supply chain costs of raw materials and packaging, ADI will increase the price of some old models of products, and the implementation date of the price increase is May 16. According to the news, ADI rose about 25%. It should be noted that the main products of ADI are also in short supply, and the delivery time is also constantly extending. Many of them have gone over 30 weeks, and some materials are even out of stock.

As early as January 29, China's Taiwan MCU manufacturer shengqun semiconductor (Hetai) once again issued a price increase notice. According to the notice, due to the imbalance between supply and demand in the semiconductor market, the prices of raw materials have been rising continuously. The second wave of price hikes has been implemented by the wafer manufacturers. In addition, the packaging plants have also started to comprehensively raise the prices of packaging and testing Commission. In response to the rise in material costs, the company announced a 15% increase in the selling price of all IC products shipped on and after April 1.

Recently, terminal enterprises have also begun to make a voice. The official microblog of Xiaomi group released "instructions on adjusting the official recommended retail prices of some models of Xiaomi TV and redmi TV". In this announcement, Xiaomi pointed out that due to the changes in global market supply and demand, epidemic situation and exchange rate changes, the prices of various TV core components including display panels and chips have continued to fluctuate significantly in the near future. For a long time in the future, the company will try its best to ensure that the products are still highly cost-effective after price adjustment.

An executive of a chip design company told reporters that the price of some products has been raised, on the one hand, in order to balance the rising cost, on the other hand, it is also to curb hoarding and speculation and increase the risk of hoarding behavior.

When will supply and demand balance?

From the product side, many categories are on the rise. In addition to drive IC, storage chips, image chips, GPU, CPU, etc. are also in short supply, and prices continue to rise. According to the group intelligence consulting report, in early March, some upstream silicon chip and semiconductor chemical additives and other manufacturers announced a new round of price increases, which once again increased the pressure on the material cost of midstream chip manufacturers. At the same time, the chip designers of CIS may face the risk of production reduction in the second quarter due to the change of independent distribution capacity of wafer foundry.

Since March, terminal brands have released new products, and the average storage capacity of single machine has increased. In the 5g era, large capacity storage has gradually become a rigid demand, and the demand continues to rise with product upgrading. According to the latest forecast of sigmaitell in March, the embedded storage entered the rising channel in the second quarter. However, due to the price rise of many parts such as driver IC, PMIC, battery and so on, the BOM cost pressure of the whole machine is intensified. Under this background, if the embedded storage increases too much, it may face the risk that the terminal will delay the upgrade of storage capacity to reduce the cost. In recent years, there are frequent mid - and high-end new machines, and the demand for lpddr is strong and the supply and demand are tightening. The average price of lpddr is expected to rise by 7% - 10% in the second quarter.

The latest survey by trendforce Jibang consulting also shows that the price of memory chips continues to rise, and DRAM prices have officially entered an upward cycle. In the second quarter, affected by the continuous booming demand for terminal products and the recovery of demand for data center, buyers are eager to raise DRAM inventory level. Therefore, after the average price of DRAM rose by 3% - 8% in the first quarter, it is estimated that the contract price increase in the second quarter will rise by 13% - 18%.

At the same time, the supply of NAND flash controller is still in short supply. The price of NAND flash in the second quarter is expected to increase by 3% - 8% from a slight decrease of 5% - 10% in the first quarter, according to Jibang consulting. At present, Samsung's factory in Austin, Texas, USA has not yet been fully restored to work. The supply of controllers will cause more worries, which will further limit Samsung's supply capacity in client SSD. Therefore, it is not ruled out that the increase of contract price may exceed the current forecast.

In the whole laptop market, due to the hot bitcoin market and the inclination of AMD's supply focus to the console game market, the supply of graphics cards is obviously limited; due to the imbalance between supply and demand of IC, the supply of laptop panel, CPU and motherboard is also gradually tight. According to the research forecast of group intelligence consulting semiconductor team, the supply of graphics card may last for the whole year, but the supply situation of IC will start to improve from the second half of the year.

Zheng Li, director and CEO of Changdian Technology Co., Ltd., said at a recent exchange meeting that the shortage of production capacity is a problem that will be solved sooner or later. There is no need for the industry to panic too much. He predicted that the shortage of production capacity will be eased in September and October this year.

In Zheng Li's opinion, in order to learn the coordinated development of industrial chain, enterprises engaged in product development need to cooperate with wafer factories and finished product manufacturing (packaging) factories. When enterprises can achieve deep coordination in their own industrial chain, there will be early warning of capacity shortage. Therefore, for the integrated circuit industry, we should not only learn technology, but also learn to deal with the problem of production capacity, and jointly plan the development of the entire industrial chain from the three aspects of technology, mode and thinking. (Editor: Li Qingyu)

?