GPU Supply Shortage Difficult to Resolve before April
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. He can be reached at hwdoh@nhqv.com. -- Ed.
Semiconductors such as GPUs, automotive semiconductors, SiCs, and APs, are all in short supply. While demand is sound, the main issue is a lack of manufacturing facilities. We expect the supply shortage to persist for the time being.
GPU supply shortage difficult to resolve before April
Recently, semiconductors such as GPUs, automotive semiconductors, silicon carbides (SiCs), and APs, have been in short supply. While demand is sound, the main issue is a lack of manufacturing facilities, such as foundries. We expect this situation to sustain for the time being.
Recently, NVIDIA commented on the recent GPU supply shortage at its new GeForce RTX event. The company said GPU supply is currently very tight and the shortage will not be resolved before April. The firm also mentioned that supply cannot keep up with demand. For GPUs, an increase in gaming demand due to the recent non-face-to-face trend and demand for cryptocurrency mining have been added to the shortage of major products. TSMC and Samsung Electronics’ foundry division, both of which produce semiconductors for GPUs, are running at 100% utilization rates.
Lack of automotive and compound semiconductor capacity
In 1H20, due to Covid-19, automotive demand decreased, and semiconductor companies reduced their automotive semiconductor production. Since then, their capacity has mainly focused on IT products, for which demand has been solid. However, while auto demand recovered in 2H20, the lack of production facilities at foundries intensified, making it impossible to rapidly ramp up production of automotive semiconductors. According to industry insiders, this situation will not be resolved in 1H20.
The capacity of next-generation compound semiconductors such as SiC and GaN is also insufficient. GaN foundry player Unikorn said it will significantly expand its GaN-on-Si chip capacity for IT device chargers this year. TSMC currently has 3~4 MOCVD units to produce 6-inch GaN wafers, giving it a monthly production capacity of 1.5K~2K wpm. Due to the surge in orders this year, however, additional investment will be needed to resolve the shortage.