Vishay Intertechnology global manufacturing disrupted
Vishay’s manufacturing facilities in Ukraine, China and Taiwan have been impacted by various disruptions.
The Russia-Ukraine war is creating delays in Vishay’s manufacturing process in Ukraine, which is specifically affecting VS-10 and VS-40 series. This has created a ripple through the manufacturer’s supply chain across its diode and rectifier supply and is also causing delays in its Taiwan operations.
Simultaneously, Vishay’s China-based production plant has been operating at 50% capacity —contributing factors include COVID-19 and workforce shortages. About 50% of Vishay’s total MOSFET production occurs at its China plants and some lead times are now extending to over two years.
Vishay’s overall automotive and active component lead times are currently sitting at 70 weeks as the supply for these resistors tightens in the market. Authorized channels globally are reporting that Vishay is not confirming any new orders for automotive resistors. In this respect, the most affected series is the CRCW series, which has no lead time guarantee or confirmed delivery date. The WSL series is currently at a 99-week lead time, while the MMB, MMU and MMA series are now up to 87 weeks.
TE Connectivity sees disruption affect multiple manufacturing locations
TE Connectivity’s automotive sector has been facing the brunt of the company’s shortage issues. Lead times are currently sitting at 40 weeks and are expected to increase.
The Russia-Ukraine war is impacting manufacturing in Eastern Europe. Component output from TE’s factory in the region has decreased in recent weeks with the unfolding of geopolitical events.
Compared to its other factory locations, TE’s China production plants have been especially strained due to limited factory operations during the Lunar New year in February.
Epson informs customers of factory delays due to regional government mandate
In February, Epson informed customers that its production in Suzhou, China, was affected by government-ordered travel restrictions for workers amid a COVID-19 outbreak in the region. The Suzhou factory produces crystal products, which are necessary for various electronics and equipment, such as clocks and communications equipment.
Currently, lead times on the XIG series are up to 130 weeks.
STMicroelectronics’ lead times extend again
STMicro continues to be affected by ongoing raw material shortages, which are impacting its STM32F103xx and STM32F4xxx series. Some raw materials necessary for production have lead times extending 50 weeks.
DRAM memory prices continue to fluctuate
It is expected that prices of Micron will increase by 8-10% for DDR3 and NAND flash from March onward.
As market supply remains low for DRAM and eMMC products, prices continue to fluctuate and are trending upward. Availabilities and deliveries are strictly dependent on allocation awarded when orders are placed; however, in many cases, firm delivery dates are not being confirmed by manufacturers.
NAND Flash market feels the impact in the months following the contamination incident
SanDisk, Western Digital’s flash memory brand, is seeing price and lead times across its products increase as a result of the manufacturing contamination that occurred in January. The two factories where the contamination occurred are in Japan and are operated by WD’s joint venture partner, Kioxia. A month following the incident, operations have resumed at full capacity, but not without consequence. The original report accounted for 7 exabytes of unusable 3D NAND but did not include the 21 days the factories were offline.
The lowered supply is expected to lead to a 5-10% price increase in NAND Flash products in coming months. Lead times are also estimated to extend beyond July 2022.
Upcoming DDR5 launch affects RDIMM products
Recent market activity is increasing demand for 2933 MHz modules as memory makers are reportedly moving production capacity from 2933 MHz to 3200 MHz for new generation DDR5 production. Some vendors have already reported reduced allocation for 2933 speed RDIMMs. Most vendors are optimistic that by end of Q2 or Q3 2022, demand for server DIMMs will increase due to the launch of DDR5. Based on past trends and customer feedback, this timeframe is also one of the busiest times of the year for the server segment.
No signs of immediate relief for Intel SSDs
SK Hynix acquired the Intel SSD business and re-branded it as Solidigm. To limit the disruption to the SSD market, SK Hynix and Intel will co-exist until 2025.
However, supply constraints have been unavoidable due to raw material shortages. These shortages have led the companies to allocate material to close the margin between logistics costs and parts sales — often resulting in allocating production to high-capacity SSDs. As a result, small capacity SSDs (240 GB, 480 GB and 960 GB) have then become short with no immediate improvement anticipated.
The Western Digital 3D NAND contamination incident has a ripple effect on the SSD market
The WD contamination did not immediately trigger a surge in market demand across SSD products while damages were still being assessed. However, since NAND is the main component for SSDs, a price spike is anticipated. SSD manufacturers that are likely to feel the impact include Taiwanese companies Innodisk and Transcend due to their usage of WD’s 3D NAND products.
In tandem, the shortage of power management IC and controller chips continues to put pressure on the overall supply of SSDs.
Supply of enterprise and small capacity hard drives finds balance with demand
Supply and demand remain balanced for Enterprise HDDs overall. Manufacturers’ focus remains on high capacity drives (10TB and above) – this is especially true for 16TB and 18TB HDDs
Raw material shortages hit HDD manufacturing, leading to price increases
Both Seagate and Western Digital hard drive production is affected by raw material shortages and increased logistics costs. WD is expected to increase HDD prices by 5% in Q2. Meanwhile, Seagate has already increased its HDD product prices by 3-4%.
Tight supply of Mellanox network adapter cards leads customers to seek alternative parts
Mellanox supply lead times are 26-32 weeks with both the MCX-6 and MCX-5 series expected to have the least availability. As a result, the company has increased the price of its MCX-6 series by 25%. This limited supply of Mellanox network adapter cards across the board has led customers to seek alternative parts from Intel and Broadcom to minimize the risk of supply uncertainties.
Raspberry Pi demand has increased
The Raspberry Pi products RPI3B+, RPI3-MODBP and CM3+ 16GB/32GB have been in high demand in the education and manufacturing spaces. As demand for these series has increased, so has the difficulty to complete builds for them. This difficulty is stemmed from IC gating issues for Raspberry Pi products due to Broadcom chip shortages. Broadcom designed a part, specifically made for Raspberry Pi products and now lead times are extending one to two years.
AMD’s embedded CPU segment affected by supply chain woes
Raw material shortages are impacting AMD’s embedded segment, which mainly consists of industrial peripherals and military customers. This has led embedded CPU prices to increase by 15% and lead times have stretched to a minimum of 30 weeks.
Intel takes its ethernet controller chipset supply and demand matter into its own hands
Supply of Intel ethernet controller chipsets are severely constrained once again, following a short spurt of relief in February. In general, booking lead times remain at a minimum of 1 year, and Intel is now working directly with designated end customers on providing support. As a result, open market availability is likely to be scarce even as demand continues, ultimately impacting pricing.