"Lack of core" wave appeared at the end of the year

The performance of the semiconductor industry has always been "positively correlated" with the global economy, that is, global economic growth, and the semiconductor market also grows simultaneously. If the global economy shrinks, it will also be reflected in the semiconductor market. However, the situation in 2020 is somewhat special. Affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic, market analysis agencies have lowered their expectations for the semiconductor industry at the beginning of the year, and it is generally believed that there will be negative growth. Gartner forecasts a decrease of 0.9%, and McKinsey forecasts a decrease of 5%.
 
However, what is surprising is that the performance of the semiconductor market in the middle of the year has been better than people expected. Although the demand for smart phones and automobiles was still not optimistic at that time, the "home economy" had begun to show its momentum. The demand for tablets and small and medium-sized TVs continued to increase, and the demand for chips in data centers and cloud servers grew faster. By the end of the year, a wave of "core shortages" has begun in the semiconductor field. From power management chips, display driver chips, to MOSFET power semiconductors, and MCUs, there are large-scale shortages. The "core shortage" trend extends upstream. Not only is TSMC's advanced process capacity below 10 nanometers competing for production capacity, but the 8-inch traditional process capacity supply is also seriously insufficient, testing the semiconductor supply chain. During the interview, Lin Weisheng, deputy general manager of Hejian chip sales, predicted that this situation of short supply will continue until the first half of 2021.
 
The reason for this situation is related to the following reasons: First, the "home economy" under the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia has accelerated the global digital transformation, and the demand for cloud services, servers, laptops, games, and health care is rising. 5G The rapid development of, Internet of Things, automobiles, artificial intelligence and machine learning have all promoted the market's demand for semiconductor products. Second, the new crown pneumonia epidemic has impacted the global supply chain and aggravated the contradiction between supply and demand. Relatively speaking, China's earlier resumption of work and production has allowed Chinese manufacturers to gain more market opportunities, but it has also aggravated domestic supply tensions. In addition, panic stocking and profit-seeking roasted seeds and nuts also exacerbated the chip shortage.