jms_embedded
Well-known member
Wow. Kurt Sievers gave a great bird's eye view of the automotive chip manufacturer situation, in a recent dialogue with Citi semiconductor analyst Chris Danely. (He took up maybe 75% of the time, but his dialogue with Sievers was much more interesting than the audience questions, IMHO.)
Seeking Alpha has a transcript, but it's worth listening to directly: https://www.veracast.com/webcasts/citigroup/technology2022/G1TiQ8.cfm
One interesting excerpt below.
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Chris Danely: Okay. And then just to touch on the shortages, again, because I get this question a lot as well. Are there I guess, different parts at different times going into shortage? Or has it been, let's call, it five, 10, 15 parts that have been consistently in shortage for a while? And is it NXP? Is it your dastardly competitors? Is it a mix? Maybe if you could just shed a little insight on what's going on?
Kurt Sievers: Yes, it's not that much about particular parts, it's about specific technologies, it's specific nodes. And most of those are indeed in the bracket between now -- I'd say between 28 and 180 nanometers.
And that was ranging all the way from what you need for microcontrollers to analog mixed signal. So, it's not just like -- because there was some saying at some time, it's particularly microcontrollers. No, it's all across.
And since many of these shortages are originating from the foundries, it is not a NXP only or competitor A, competitor B only thing because it comes from the foundry and the same foundry is supporting all of us.
So, it's much broader than NXP and it's now really playing out more clearly, which are the nodes which are which are missing. And we try as an industry to build the best mix of parts from these available technology nodes. So, say, let there be a shortage, say in 55 nanometers, then the whole industry needs parts and 55. And then the artists to make sure that we maximize the cars which can be built with that available 55 nanometer capacity, which is very complicated, because there is thousands of different products by several different semiconductor companies going through 20 plus different tier one companies into 10 plus different OEMs. So, it's a pretty big puzzle to be sure you optimize the existing capacity, but below the line, it's still not enough.
Chris Danely: And in terms of supply getting a little bit better, is that simply because let's say foundry X, has seen a little bit of decline in demand from a PC or handset and they're able to allocate some of that capacity to auto and industrial or I know you guys have definitely, sort of, broaden your foundry horizons that a combination of both. Could you maybe talk about what's--?
Kurt Sievers: It's much more than latter, so the positive impact from the more soft demand in PC consumer and low end mobile, we haven't seen any positive impact on the wafer supply which we need, zero. It's really -- unfortunately I have to say that clearly -- absolutely zero.
And the reason is that this technology or process technology buckets are not fungible, it is different technologies which are falling free by the lower demand in -- say in mobile, versus what we need in automotive.
Now, I think over time foundries have some flexibility to retool and actually create more capacity out of that, but that takes time. So that's not a -- this is not a quick move.
Now, most of the increased supply is just the straight and direct results of efforts, investments from the foundries over this over two year period now. I mean, I had the first escalations of supply shortages pretty much exactly two years ago. It's now two years ago that I was asked into the first CEO-level meetings with automotive and industrial customers, actually first automotive and industrial on shortages and since then, I mean, the whole industry has worked manically on increasing capacity and that's what we start to see now as a positive result. But it's not a crossmove from mobile or consumer.
Seeking Alpha has a transcript, but it's worth listening to directly: https://www.veracast.com/webcasts/citigroup/technology2022/G1TiQ8.cfm
One interesting excerpt below.
----
Chris Danely: Okay. And then just to touch on the shortages, again, because I get this question a lot as well. Are there I guess, different parts at different times going into shortage? Or has it been, let's call, it five, 10, 15 parts that have been consistently in shortage for a while? And is it NXP? Is it your dastardly competitors? Is it a mix? Maybe if you could just shed a little insight on what's going on?
Kurt Sievers: Yes, it's not that much about particular parts, it's about specific technologies, it's specific nodes. And most of those are indeed in the bracket between now -- I'd say between 28 and 180 nanometers.
And that was ranging all the way from what you need for microcontrollers to analog mixed signal. So, it's not just like -- because there was some saying at some time, it's particularly microcontrollers. No, it's all across.
And since many of these shortages are originating from the foundries, it is not a NXP only or competitor A, competitor B only thing because it comes from the foundry and the same foundry is supporting all of us.
So, it's much broader than NXP and it's now really playing out more clearly, which are the nodes which are which are missing. And we try as an industry to build the best mix of parts from these available technology nodes. So, say, let there be a shortage, say in 55 nanometers, then the whole industry needs parts and 55. And then the artists to make sure that we maximize the cars which can be built with that available 55 nanometer capacity, which is very complicated, because there is thousands of different products by several different semiconductor companies going through 20 plus different tier one companies into 10 plus different OEMs. So, it's a pretty big puzzle to be sure you optimize the existing capacity, but below the line, it's still not enough.
Chris Danely: And in terms of supply getting a little bit better, is that simply because let's say foundry X, has seen a little bit of decline in demand from a PC or handset and they're able to allocate some of that capacity to auto and industrial or I know you guys have definitely, sort of, broaden your foundry horizons that a combination of both. Could you maybe talk about what's--?
Kurt Sievers: It's much more than latter, so the positive impact from the more soft demand in PC consumer and low end mobile, we haven't seen any positive impact on the wafer supply which we need, zero. It's really -- unfortunately I have to say that clearly -- absolutely zero.
And the reason is that this technology or process technology buckets are not fungible, it is different technologies which are falling free by the lower demand in -- say in mobile, versus what we need in automotive.
Now, I think over time foundries have some flexibility to retool and actually create more capacity out of that, but that takes time. So that's not a -- this is not a quick move.
Now, most of the increased supply is just the straight and direct results of efforts, investments from the foundries over this over two year period now. I mean, I had the first escalations of supply shortages pretty much exactly two years ago. It's now two years ago that I was asked into the first CEO-level meetings with automotive and industrial customers, actually first automotive and industrial on shortages and since then, I mean, the whole industry has worked manically on increasing capacity and that's what we start to see now as a positive result. But it's not a crossmove from mobile or consumer.