Since August 2017, the delivery time of microcontrollers and logic chips has been extended from 8 weeks to more than 25 weeks, from 2 months to half a year, and some MCU products have even been extended by more than 40 weeks. Long-term core shortage will inevitably lead to short supply. Since the end of last year, chips have started a continuous price increase model. Not only chip prices have been increased, but the entire industrial chain including upstream silicon wafers, production equipment, photoresist, specialty gases, and foundry costs are rising.
This situation is mainly due to the combined effects of the following aspects:
The first is demand growth. Take new energy vehicles as an example. Compared with traditional fuel vehicles, new energy vehicles are more electronic and intelligent, such as adding more cameras, sensors, and IoT chips. According to statistics, traditional fuel vehicles need about 800 chips, while new energy vehicles need 1,500 chips. New energy vehicles accounted for 3.8% of cars sold globally last year, and this year will reach 8%, and the demand for chips for new energy vehicles is still growing. In addition, there is also the impact of rising demand for 5G, Internet of Things, and consumer electronics on chip demand.
The second is the influence of external events. After the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, many MCU manufacturers around the world ceased production last year. The epidemic in Malaysia this year is severe, and many major global chip manufacturers in the country have been greatly affected. In addition, there were multiple blows from the Italian-French strike, the Renesas fire, and Blizzard in Texas, a major chip town in the United States.
The third is insufficient production capacity. The chip manufacturers TSMC, UMC, and SMIC Huahong are currently in full production, and foundry production capacity is generally insufficient. The chip production line expansion cycle is long. Although everyone is actively expanding production, the general chip production line expansion takes more than 2-3 years, so the MCU production capacity has been limited at present.
The fourth is channel stocking. Under the panic of chip shortage, relevant parties are seizing the opportunity to stock up. First, downstream manufacturers stock up in advance in order to meet production needs. In addition, some middlemen seize the opportunity to roast seeds and drive up prices, which has exacerbated the situation of shortages and price increases.
Status of the industry: Demand for chips for major home appliances continues to rise
The home appliance industry, as a major consumer of chips, is facing the same grim situation. The impact of the shortage of chips on the home appliance industry began to appear at the end of last year. On the one hand, the chip industry chain is under pressure from stock shortages. On the other hand, with the continuous improvement of frequency conversion and intelligence of home appliances, the amount of core consumption has been increasing.
Comparing the frequency conversion situation of the five categories of subdivided home appliances (home air conditioners, commercial air conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines and heat pumps) in 2020 and 2021, it can be seen that the increase in chips brought by frequency conversion is very considerable.
Under the new energy efficiency standards for household air conditioners, the frequency conversion ratio has increased significantly. In 2021, the frequency conversion ratio of household air conditioners will increase by 14% compared with last year, and the corresponding increase will be 45 million IPM modules, and the total usage will reach 250 million;
Different types of commercial air conditioners are quite different. Among them, multi-line has achieved full frequency conversion, and the frequency conversion ratio of unit machines will increase by 5% from last year. The overall IPM demand is more than 2 million;
The frequency conversion ratio of refrigerators will increase to 34%, corresponding to an increase of 20 million IGBT chips to 120 million;
The frequency conversion ratio of washing machines will be increased to 45%, corresponding to an increase of 7 million IPMs, bringing the total to 33 million.
The total amount of heat pump hot water and heat pump heating is relatively small, corresponding to the demand for IPM of about 300,000, which can be ignored.
In terms of intelligence, from 2018 to 2020, the proportion of smart home appliances has continued to increase. Therefore, the demand and functions of MCUs have also put forward higher and more comprehensive requirements, such as the addition of display chips, communication chips, frequency conversion chips, Touch chip and other requirements.
Judging from the current distribution of chip production capacity, MCUs are mainly taken over by 7 countries, of which Japan, Germany, the United States and China account for most of the market share. Among them, except for the United States, the proportions of the other three countries are increasing year-on-year . The most worth mentioning is Japan's Renesas Electronics. In the case of global core shortage, it has supported half of the production capacity of major home appliance MCUs, and has effectively guaranteed the chip supply of major complete machine companies.
From the perspective of the overall industry chain of home appliance chips, due to the lack of production capacity and raw materials, all links have been greatly squeezed, causing many problems. In the case of a surge in downstream demand, some companies are out of stock for washing machines, refrigerators, microwave ovens and small home appliances chips. At the same time, the shortage of total amount has led to priority flow of chip supply to leading companies. Some small and medium-sized complete machine manufacturers have to find chips from other companies at high prices. This not only increases costs, but also requires more time to run in. Some companies have to postpone their new product releases due to lack of chips.
Although the entire semiconductor industry chain is working together to cope with the difficulties, due to the long production capacity expansion cycle, the short-term shortage of cores and price increases will also affect related industries. For the home appliance industry, chips are also a major event that is vital to the survival and development of the industry.
