The electronics industry is now entering the peak season, while the shortage of parts and price increases in the IC market are continuing. In August, three semiconductor manufacturers, Holtek, Nuvoton, and Maxim, are worthy of attention in the MCU market.
Holtek has already increased the price of all products by 15% in April and 10%-15% in August. Nuvoton also issued a price adjustment for foundry services (part of which are used for MCUs and power semiconductors), with a 15% price increase, effective from September 1. In addition, Maxim, which focuses on PMICs and sensors, also announced a 6% price increase for all products from August 22.
Looking back at this year's supply chain events, various accidents have caused a huge MCU supply gap. According to data from the Susquehanna, the shortage of MCUs for various purposes such as automobiles, industrial control, and consumer electronics intensified in July, and the delivery period was extended to 26.5 weeks. The average delivery period for various chips during the same period was 20.2 weeks. At present, the delivery time of MCUs from major manufacturers such as Infineon, NXP, Microchip and Renesas is generally more than 26 weeks, and the longest even reaches 52 weeks. ST's MCU is even worse. At present, many series of 8-bit and 32-bit MCUs of STM no longer provide specific delivery dates. There is also NXP in the same situation.
In addition to MCUs, passive components, connectors, and mobile phone chips have also fallen into price increases. Prior to this, Vishay announced a 10%-20% price increase. In addition, the two major passive component producing areas in Southeast Asia have implemented control, affecting the production and transportation of various resistors, capacitors and MLCC. In addition, the further impact of the epidemic is not conducive to the stability of the market, and the delivery and prices of passive components will continue to rise.
The well-known connector manufacturer Molex not only announced a 7% price increase across the board, but the delivery period is generally more than 24 weeks and may be postponed. However, from an overall point of view, price increases are relatively restrained.
Regarding the price increase of mobile phone chips, at the end of July, UNISOC announced a 25% increase in the price of its smart phone product line, which will take effect on August 1. UNISOC's smart phone products include SoC, AI computing chips, etc., using 12mm and 28mm process foundry. The price increase of these chips reflects the rising cost of upstream foundry and the shortage of capacity.