Electronics

As the chip shortage intensifies,the United States cannot sit still.At the end of September,the summit was held again,and at the meeting,TSMC,Samsung,Intel and other major manufacturers were required to submit relevant confidential data within 45 days(the deadline is November 8),in the name of"improving the transparency of the chip supply chain.".

Once the request of the United States was put forward,it attracted heated discussion,and the industry was also very concerned about the decisions of related companies.From recent reports,we can see that the United States seems to have"get what it wants."

On October 21,local time,the U.S.Department of Commerce stated that Intel(U.S.)and Infineon(Germany)have already responded and will cooperate in providing relevant data.This is"a good start";in addition,it said The relevant data will be submitted within the time limit,including South Korean company SK Hynix and foundry leader TSMC.At present,Samsung has not made a clear statement.

It should be understood that the data required by the United States to be submitted includes order shipment status,inventory status,customer information,production plans,production capacity,etc.,which are all core information of the company.Once it is made public,the competitiveness of the company is likely to be greatly reduced.Although the relevant U.S.authorities emphasized that"no disclosure will be made,"people in the industry are still very worried:Can the U.S.guarantee be trusted?

Earlier,TSMC’s general counsel stated that in order to ensure the trust of customers,it would never agree to the request of the United States;South Korean representatives also said that the request of the United States has put pressure on relevant Korean companies and will not readily agree to it.But as the"deadline"gets closer and closer,major companies have chosen to compromise or are worried about the US using tough measures.

While requiring companies to submit data,the Secretary of Commerce emphasized that if companies are unwilling to share resources,the United States may use legal tools to force them to"submit".Based on this,many views believe that it will be a matter of time before major companies compromise.

The reason why the United States is eager to solve the chip shortage is that many industries in the country have suffered heavy losses.Take the"most injured"automotive industry as an example.Due to the lack of chips,the global automotive industry will reduce production by about 5 million vehicles this year,with a loss of 110 billion U.S.dollars.This includes US companies such as General Motors and Ford.

GM said in early October that its six plants in North America had stopped production;Ford said that as of the end of March,there were about 20,000 cars waiting to install chips.Even Apple has not been able to escape the impact of the"chip shortage"-Cook said that the current production of computers has been affected,and the field of mobile phones is also precarious.

However,there are also views that the United States is accelerating the development of its own chip industry on the grounds of"chip shortage"this time.Since the beginning of this year,in order to make up for the country’s disadvantages in chip manufacturing,the United States has stated that it will allocate US$52 billion for chip production and research.This investment will bring 7-10 chip factories to the United States.

Under the"temptation"of huge subsidies,many companies have indeed announced plans to build factories in the United States.For example,TSMC plans to invest 12 billion US dollars to build a 5nm factory in the United States;Samsung plans to invest 17 billion US dollars to build a second in the United States.Block chip factory.

However,according to the news on October 23,Intel seems to have considered giving up investing billions of dollars in the United States to build a new chip factory,because the government's support policy has not followed.