Last week, research firm IHS Markit estimated that the global chip shortage could cost automakers 1.3M production vehicles in the second quarter and that the shortage could stretch into Q4, one quarter later than previously estimated. The shortage was recently worsened by weather-related production pauses in Austin, Texas, for foundry giant Samsung (OTC:SSNNF,OTC:SSNLF) and auto chip players Infineon (OTCQX:IFNNY) and NXP Semiconductor (NASDAQ:NXPI). Auto chip company Renesas (OTCPK:RNECF) also announced that its recent fab fire will likely keep the affected production offline for up to three months.
The automotive industry continues to pause production lines due to the shortage, but the problem has also moved out into high demand consumer electronics. Reports had previously suggested that Qualcomm components were starting to feel the pressure. Samsung's Austin fab produced The reports were backed up last week when Foxconn warned that an unspecified consumer electronics "materials shortage" could stretch into next year.
The global semiconductor shortage will ease, but the timing for the recovery keeps getting pushed back due to the supply chain complexities and an industry-wide reliance on one foundry.
Adding capacity to address the shortage
Dominant global foundry TSMC (NYSE:TSM) recently revealed plans to invest $100B over the next three years to expand its chip production capacity. But adding capacity takes time along with the financial investment. Production of advanced semiconductors also takes an average of 12 to 16 weeks from order to shipping in the best of circumstances.
Automotive AI chips, SoCs, and GPUs used in advanced driver-assistance and infotainment systems all have a high exposure to TSMC. Broadly-used microcontrollers also have very high TSMC exposure with the foundry producing about 70% of all automotive MCUs. The bottlenecks in these areas can't ease until TSMC has enough production capacity to go around.
DRAM flash, which appears in vehicle ADAS and infotainment systems, has a low TSMC exposure. The market is led by Samsung and Micron (NASDAQ:MU), which have their own fabs. As mentioned, Samsung is having its own capacity issues worsened by the recent Texas production pause, though production has returned to near normal levels. Last week, Micron forecast $9B capex for 2021 and said it would stick to "disciplined" capex despite the severe DRAM shortage.
Fab-lite models drove TSMC reliance
Why does TSMC handle so much production for so many other companies, including those who have in-house production capabilities? Over the past two decades, more semi companies have embraced a "fab-lite" model, which often includes outsourcing the more expensive advanced process nodes for things like MCUs to TSMC.
Automotive chip leaders Renesas, NXP, and Infineon all outsource at least part of their advanced MCU production to TSMC. Peers Microchip (NASDAQ:MCHP) and STMicroelectronics (StM) are exceptions with the former relying on multiple foundries and the latter mostly relying on in-house production. But those two companies only represent about 12% combined of automotive MCU production, according to an IHS Markit white paper.
Prolonged shortage
MCU lead times had been pushed out to 26 weeks even before the recent foundry setbacks. The recovery will remain complicated, involving numerous parts of the semi supply chain, even if there aren't further setbacks.