Why is there a shortage of automotive chips?

The reasons for the automotive chip shortage are summarized in five areas.

The first is the global semiconductor manufacturing line capacity constraints. From the semiconductor industry as a whole, the tight supply and demand situation in fact in recent years have shown, and with the technology of various industries in the continuous upgrading, the demand for chip products is also increasing. To the car, for example, with the new energy vehicles, intelligent Internet car technology applications, chip applications than traditional fuel vehicles are multiplied.

At the same time, 5G, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and other aspects are also the main growth point of the chip. On the one hand, there has been a significant growth in terms of demand, but on the other hand, the growth in chip production capacity has not fully matched the growth in automotive demand.

Second, one of the most important reasons is the new crown pneumonia epidemic. In the first quarter of last year, which was most seriously affected by the epidemic, because of the sharp decline in automobile production and sales, the demand for chips plummeted, and car companies, including parts and components companies are withdrawing orders for automotive chips.

And to the third and fourth quarters, with the rapid recovery of China's auto market, due to the chip industry's production cycle, the automotive industry's new orders to be arranged in the back, so it caused the emergence of automotive chips from the fourth quarter of last year, the situation of tension.

Third, from the second half of last year, consumer electronics companies overdue hoarding exacerbated the automotive chip tension. Mainly from the fourth quarter of last year, domestic cell phone companies have begun to increase their reserves. Subsequently, companies in various industries are following suit and increasing their chip reserves, thus crowding out last year's chip production.

Fourth, due to unavoidable factors in the short term cuts in chip production capacity. At the end of last year and the beginning of this year, Europe, Southeast Asia, the second wave of the epidemic, coupled with the earthquake in Japan, the United States, such as blizzards and other uncontrollable factors, so that these local semiconductor production enterprises to reduce production, shutdowns, so that the original is not surplus semiconductor production capacity is even worse.

Fifth, the current automotive industry panic hoarding, exacerbating the chip shortage. Because the current automotive chip supply gap and recovery cycle and other information is not clear, the global automotive vehicle, parts and components companies are not optimistic about the expectations, coupled with the media propaganda, exacerbated the panic in the market.