On August 26, the fourth World New Energy Vehicle Conference, Zhang Qiang, co-founder and chairman of the board of directors of CoreChip Technology, said in an interview with Punch News that the price of some car chips had indeed fallen recently, but only “from a very irrational price back to a slightly more rational price range “. At the same time, he believes that car companies will still face a longer period of chip supply problems.
A few days ago, the news of a big dive in chip prices sparked widespread concern in the industry. According to CCTV financial reports, an STMicroelectronics chip is the core component of the electronic control system, was one of the most in demand chip products in 2021, the market offer once rose to about 3,500 yuan a, 2022 from the high level of decline to about 600 RMB, a price reduction of more than 80%.
In this regard, Zhang Qiang said that the price plunge of the chip is a consumer chip, not an automotive chip. The price of automotive chips is only “from a very irrational price, back to a slightly more rational price range, and not a price drop. The previous increase in chips such as MCU (micro control unit) chips and power chips, etc., the demand is still relatively tight.
Zhejiang University, director of the Institute of Microelectronics, Chinese Academy of Engineering, Wu Hanming also said in his speech, comprehensive from the demand, supply side of the future development trend of the automotive chip industry, the overall demand is expected to continue to expand in the future. Some of the supply side of the chip supply has been eased, but most of the chip supply will continue to be tight.
Zhang Qiang expects that the shortage of MCU, power supply chips, interface chips and other types of shortages will continue until next year, because the automotive chip supply model to a certain extent determines the supply tension will be a long-term problem.
“Counting from 2000, in terms of consumer chips, there is usually a big downward cycle in three or four years.” He said that the consumer chip volume is larger, less variety, the chip factory can stock in advance, but the automotive industry chain is very long, from the chip to secondary suppliers, primary suppliers, and then to the car factory, the industry chain is far longer than the cell phone, coupled with the number of companies doing automotive chip is less, the reflection of the development of the industry demand is relatively conservative, “you have demand, give money I do not increase production. Unlike the consumer is a big up and down environment, automotive semiconductor production orders, do not see orders not production, demand increases when there will be a shortage of goods, so it has been maintained in the normal supply and tight supply of two states, rarely like the consumer class has a large inventory.”
Zhang Qiang also talked about the cell phone chip and car chip company’s business logic and support logic are different, because the number of cell phone parts is limited, while the number of car parts is huge, “one of the parts can not, the car can not get out, it will affect other functions. So within the car chip, it will become a reciprocal shortage of state, for example, a part is missing, the car manufacturer said the other also do not want first.” This has also led to chip companies generally adopt a more conservative supply strategy.
