A fierce winter storm has disrupted operations at computer chip plants in Texas, the center of semiconductor manufacturing in the United States, adding to the global chip shortage crisis. The state has more chip-producing facilities than any other U.S. state, and a sudden snowstorm left millions of people in the state facing power outages. Some factories were forced to close temporarily as the government prioritized the provision of electricity to households. Dutch semiconductor company NXP closed two factories in Texas, while South Korea's Samsung and Germany's Infineon each closed one. NXP and Infineon are important semiconductor makers in Europe, and most of the chips they make are used in automobile manufacturing.
Previously, the auto industry had warned that the chip shortage could lead to billions of dollars in lost salesTexas Instruments The company had very little impact from the severe storm and is still operating as usual. Fortunately, the blizzard had no significant impact on their operations, and the company is open for business as usual, Texas Instruments is also an important supplier of automotive chips, according to analysis and forecasts by technology research firms, if the chip plant is closed for three days, the impact on the capacity of the equipment could be up to 1 percent. Due to the surge in global demand for electronics and the impact on the semiconductor supply chain in the early stages of the new crown's popularity, experts are predicting that the chip shortage could continue through 2021. This will not only affect global automobile sales, but will it also affect global car sales?and also lead to already rising prices for consumer electronics such as game consoles and smartphones.
The supply shortage may not ease anytime soon, although component suppliers including Infineon and Bosch plan to test new chip factories this year. The time required for automotive microcontrollers has doubled to 26 weeks, and the chip shortage is likely to ease gradually from the end of March. The chip shortage could last until later this year before easing, with ST's chief predicting that the lack of chip supply will limit automakers' production capacity until the middle of the year. Also compared with advanced electronics, chips used in automotive parts are usually less technically basic products, such as microcontrollers.
Some chipmakers are reluctant to invest in these outdated production technologiesBut that will change with the development of high-performance automotive technologies such as autonomous driving. As technologies such as autonomous and assisted driving require more advanced chips to support them, the relationship between chipmakers and the automotive industry will grow, and the chip shortage poses a potential threat to industries other than automobiles and electronics. The medical device industry has not yet felt the impact of the chip shortage, but this may be because the demand for chip quantities is not yet large enough to be comparable to consumer electronics, and supply and demand is a gradual process that remains difficult to assess the impact of chips on industries other than automobiles and electronics.