BEIJING: Taiwan’s greatest earthquake since 1999 is more likely to trigger some disruption throughout Asia’s semiconductor provide chain, analysts say, after chipmakers from TSMC to UMC halted some operations to examine amenities and relocate staff.
The highly effective 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck Taiwan’s japanese coast close to Hualien County on Wednesday (Apr 3) morning, killing 9 individuals and injuring 800.
The island performs an outsized position within the international semiconductor provide chain as it’s house to the world’s largest chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), which provides chips to the likes of Apple and Nvidia, and smaller chipmakers together with UMC, Vanguard International Semiconductor, and Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing.
While most of their amenities will not be near the earthquake’s epicenter, many of those corporations mentioned they’d evacuated a few of their manufacturing crops and shut down some amenities for inspections.
“To ensure the safety of personnel, some fabs were evacuated according to company procedure,” TMSC mentioned in an announcement, including later that the staff had begun to return to work.
TSMC, whose amenities in Hsinchu, Tainan and Taichung have skilled various levels of disruptions, might must delay some shipments and enhance wafer enter to compensate for this, consultancy Isaiah Research mentioned in a word.
“Mitigating the impacts of the earthquake necessitates careful measures and time to restore production and uphold quality standards, presenting additional implications and obstacles,” they mentioned.
TSMC’s Tainan operations for superior course of nodes, equivalent to 4/5nm and 3nm, have been briefly suspended, they mentioned. In addition, the acute ultraviolet (EUV) lithography tools essential for these superior nodes was halted on the website for a interval of eight-to-15 hours.
Barclays analysts mentioned some extremely refined semiconductor fabs must function seamlessly 24/7 in a vacuum state for a number of weeks and the halts would disrupt the method, pushing up pricing stress within the sector.
This may spillover to trigger a “short-term hiccup” to electronics manufacturing in economies centered on upstream merchandise, equivalent to Japan and Korea, in addition to economies centered on downstream merchandise, equivalent to China and Vietnam, they mentioned
However, the report famous that decrease stock ranges amongst clients may enable Taiwanese and Korean chipmakers to lift costs.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/taiwan-earthquake-chip-output-hit-asian-supply-chain-analysts-4240231
