[줌인] “I can’t make a car without semiconductor” Production cuts successively including Volkswagen and Honda

Input 2021.01.11 10:31 | Revision 2021.01.11 10:40

Semiconductor companies focus on IT and mobile rather than demanding production and certification
Ford, Honda, Fiat, Volkswagen, etc.
Semiconductor industry “It is difficult to increase supply for the time being…

Due to the shortage of semiconductors in global automakers, it is inevitable to reduce production. This is expected to hurt the sales of automakers this year.

Due to the novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19), the demand for semiconductors in the information technology (IT) sector including the electronics industry is explosively increasing, while major semiconductor companies reduce the proportion of semiconductors for automobiles, which are difficult to manufacture and supply, and even for certification. This is because the supply and demand of necessary semiconductors is difficult.

According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and Nikkei Asian Review on the 10th (local time), global automakers such as Germany, the United States, and Japan showed that they are reducing production or lowering their targets this year as semiconductor supply shortages are deepening.

In recent years, as the proportion of IT and electronic parts such as electric vehicles, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), and autonomous driving has increased in the automobile industry, the semiconductor loading capacity has increased dramatically. to be. In actual automobile production, high-performance semiconductors such as various sensors, transmission, display, communication, and driver assistance systems are becoming key components.

Sam Abuelsamid, an automotive analyst at Navigant, a consulting firm, said, “Most cars today are equipped with at least 40 types of semiconductors, and more than 150 high-end models with ADAS functions. “We need a type of chip that is equivalent to “. He then emphasized, “If any of these are disrupted, you cannot produce tea.” According to market researcher KPMG Japan, EVs use about twice as much semiconductors as gasoline cars.

First of all, Ford of the United States is planning to suspend operation of the Louisville plant in the United States for a week, suffering from difficulties in supply and demand of semiconductors essential for the operation of the transmission from the current display screen. The move is likely to temporarily lay off 3,900 workers at the factory that makes two popular SUV models, WSJ said.

Other cars, such as Honda Motor Company, Fiat Chrysler Motor Vehicle NV, and others, are also planning to cut production from large pickup trucks to small sedans. Toyota decided to reduce production of tundra pickup trucks at its Texas plant in the United States due to the lack of semiconductors. The company does not specifically disclose the scale or time limit for production cuts, but is investigating whether the shortage of semiconductors will affect other vehicles. Nissan Motors plans to reduce the production of notebooks, its flagship car, by about 5,000 in January of next year.

Earlier, Volkswagen had already announced that it would cut production in China, North America and Europe. Germany also stopped producing golf models, one of the popular models from December to mid-January last year. The Spanish automaker seats under Volkswagen also plan to reduce production from the end of January to around April. Honda of Japan also decided to cut production of 4,000 sub-medium-sized cars at its factory in Mie, Japan this month.

One of the biggest reasons for the sudden shortage of semiconductor supply to the automobile industry is that the semiconductor production of major semiconductor companies is concentrated in cloud infrastructure, server, data center, PC, mobile and other IT fields. It is an analysis that the demand is exploding right now, rather than the automobile field, which is known to take a long time from standard certification to stability test and the process is known to be difficult, and it is driving the quantity to the IT field where supply is easy.

An official in the domestic semiconductor industry who requested anonymity said, “Automotive semiconductors take a long time to develop and produce, and more complex processes such as inspection work are required, whereas servers, PCs, and smartphones are largely generalized, and fast production and The supply of semiconductors is relatively concentrated in this field because it is possible,” he said. “The shortage of semiconductors for vehicles shows no signs of improvement for the time being, and most automakers will be hit directly.”