Manufacturers buy washing machines in large quantities to dismantle chips

In the past two years, we often hear the news of chip shortage, but many people may still not know the extent of the lack of core.

Recently, according to foreign media news, Peter wenningk, CEO of lithography giant ASMA, revealed that due to the shortage of chips, some large manufacturing enterprises had to buy old washing machines in order to remove the chips in the washing machines.

Not enough chips, washing machine?

“A large industrial group began to buy old washing machines and took out the semiconductors for its own chip modules.”

Peter weinningke, CEO of ASML, a global leader in lithography, talked about this situation in the company’s financial report on the 20th local time. Weininger did not name the specific company, but said that the company had only revealed its plight to him the previous week.

“This is not uncommon,” he added.

ASML, a Dutch company, is the world’s largest manufacturer of lithography machine. Lithography machine is the key equipment required for chip manufacturing. ASML accounts for 85% of the high-end lithography market with processes below 45nm.

According to ASML’s shipment in the first quarter of 2022, it sold a total of 62 lithography machines, including 59 new lithography machines and 3 second-hand lithography machines. However, at present, the speed of ASML production lithography machine is still difficult to catch up with the order scale. ASML expects that the company will not be able to digest the backlog of orders until 2024.

Winningke said that the market demand for its lithography system exceeds the current capacity. At present, ASML is improving productivity and accelerating delivery to cope with strong market demand.

Also on the 20th, Tim Archer, CEO of Colin R & D, a supplier of semiconductor etching machines in the United States, also said: “in terms of demand, the overall environment is still very strong, and the continuous delay related to supply may limit the actual amount of investment in wafer equipment in 2022.”

When did the core shortage problem occur?

The dark cloud of “lack of core” that lasted for two years has not dispersed.

In the more seriously affected auto industry, Toyota has lowered its production target for this year by about 100000 vehicles this week due to insufficient semiconductor supply. Honda Motor Company said on Thursday that due to the shortage of chips and the epidemic blockade, the company plans to cut the output of two production lines at a factory in Japan by about 50% in early May.

The daily economic news reported in March that an unnamed merchant of Shanghai SEG electronics market told reporters, “the price of stl9369, the core chip of body electronic stability system produced by Italian French semiconductor, has risen from about 20 yuan to 2800 yuan in one year.”

Since the beginning of this year, many auto companies have begun to raise the prices of their products. For example, the average price of FAW Volkswagen’s two new energy vehicles will rise by 5200 yuan, the price of Xiaopeng automobile products will rise by more than 4000 yuan, and the latest price of products announced by Weilai automobile will also rise compared with last year. Even Tesla, which has a good sales volume, recently raised the prices of domestic model 3 high-performance version and model y long-range and high-performance models by 10000 yuan.

“The price adjustment is mainly due to the rise of production costs. The prices of chips, power batteries and other materials are rising. It is difficult to say whether the car price will rise in the future.” A Tesla salesperson in Shanghai told reporters.

On April 18, Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei’s intelligent vehicle solutions division, introduced that in March, more than 3000 m5S were delivered by Xiaokang Thalis. Yu Chengdong admitted that in the case of global core shortage, it is difficult for Huawei to achieve the sales target of 300000 vehicles this year.

Checked by Cheng Peng