The global demand for Malaysian-made semiconductors continue to outstrip supply, an issue exacerbated by the nationwide shutdown that forced non-essential industries to completely shutter. This came at a time when automakers, smartphone and medical equipment manufacturers were beginning to ramp up output, an industry executive told The Edge.
Malaysia is home to a number of international suppliers and factories, such as Europe’s STMicroelectronics and Infineon (one of the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturers). Ford has suspended production of the Fiesta at its German plant and another plant that manufactures trucks as a result of the shortage. Toyota and Nissan were also forced to adjust output numbers, while Infineon had temporarily shuttered operations. Nio and Tesla were similarly affected.
There are over 50 semiconductor producers with factories in Malaysia. The collective output accounts for 13% of global chip assembly testing and packaging, and 7% of the world’s semiconductor trade passes through the country for a variety of reasons before being shipped to other markets.
Malaysia Semiconductor Industry Association president, Wong Siew Hai told the newswire that many automakers scaled back chip orders last year in anticipation of lower demand, so Malaysian chip manufacturers shifted those allocation to other sections of the electronics industry.
“Come January, the automotive industry realised they wanted to get back the capacity but the semiconductor fabrication plans didn’t have the capacity for them,” he said. However, Wong is of the opinion that the crisis could start to ease towards the end of the year, as fully vaccinated employees begin returning to work.
“Predicting based on data I’m seeing, the situation should improve, but we still cannot fulfil the demand,” Wong said, adding that demand kept piling up since the end of last year. “The constraints we had in June and early July are now beginning to reduce, and more volume is being shipped because we are allowed to operate at a higher percentage level.”
When asked to quantify the impact of the prolonged lockdown, Wong said sales losses easily ran into billions of ringgit. Electrical and electronics exports worth US$92 billion (RM386 billion) made up 39.4% of Malaysia’s total exports in 2020.
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its a bluff by these chipmakers cartel to to jack up the selling prices and push the stock prices to sky high levels
Gahmen PN pure madness & stupidity at its worst. No thanks to the local Menteri kilang… and all incompetent Cabinet ministers
https://paultan.org/2021/08/20/toyota-production-volume-in-north-america-to-drop-by-170k-vehicles-due-to-pandemic-supplier-disruptions/
https://paultan.org/2021/07/23/toyota-halts-production-in-thailand-shortage-of-parts/
https://paultan.org/2021/07/26/chip-shortage-for-carmakers-could-ease-within-weeks/
https://paultan.org/2021/07/12/chip-shortage-will-remain-through-2022-renault-ceo/
https://paultan.org/2021/07/23/bmw-unable-to-built-10000-cars-due-to-chips-shortage/
https://paultan.org/2021/05/04/chip-shortage-issue-ford-cuts-production-at-german-plants-vw-expects-tense-situation-and-tight-supply/
https://paultan.org/2021/02/05/more-vehicle-production-cuts-as-chip-shortage-crisis-expands-stellantis-gm-mazda-join-the-growing-list/
Ya our PN local mentri kilang so powderful can affect global chip supply shortages, he must have Infinity Covid Gauntlet. LOL
Tesla PCB’s are made in Penang. I know that Tesla cancelled orders before there was a ‘chip shortage’.
What bluff?
When a factory is directed to close for a certain period of time, its difficult for them to chase output again. Imagine of they are directed to close for multiple times.
Then there is the rules of lower haeadcount which will indirectly lowers output.
I work in one of such automotive related electronic factory and was totally surprised by the orders coming in since the pandemic first hit. There are increase in order from certain part of the world especially China as people there are buying more own transport due to pandemic…. The rest of the world had also increase due to more electronic or function being installed on a car.
Also, carmaker does not keep huge stock of parts/components. Parts/components supplier does not keep huge chips stock for their production line. Its all down to demand. Parts or chips are made according to demand. There is no reason to stock huge reserve of a part/component as its just sitting there and not making u money and consume space.
One also needs to understand that a chipmaker such as Infineon does not only supply chips to automotive sector. They also supply to medical sector, telco, and so on. One simple chip can be used at multiple components or more than 1 pcs in one component such as ecu,tcu,lighting control, instrument cluster, and so on. Just imagine for automotive sector only Infineon supply to Bosch, Continental, Valeo, Delphi, Tesla, Hella, and that is not even 20% of their automotive related customer. The fact that their plant in Melaka is the largest backend also contributed to the supply shortage. It was instructed to close at least twice for certain block.
If that is so, demand, why did khazanah sell off silterra chip plant to China? Got demand but still lose money? Strange.
According to global semicon cartel, these chips are used for bitcoin mining, so shortage is salahan miners wor…..
Necessary investments are extremely high in this industry. Even the big players cannot burden the costs alone and are looking for funding from other sources.
Advocates of just in time supply chain don’t look very smart now
The US embassy is monitoring the supply chain closely as semiconductor factories in Malaysia are directly affecting their auto industries, MITI Minister Azmi Ali is friendly to the industries but the pressure put on his should led by populist TakMalu ex-IMBD felon, causing public backlash. The felon thought towkays were making monies but he forgot (due to his ignorant & lacking work experience in industry), our supply chain is complex as we suppy to worldwide. Not to forget we have little napoleons in MOH/Local councils who can ask factories to close for 14 days. Who are they to do that?