Micron Technology Inc, the biggest maker of computer memory chips in the US, said that the growing crisis in Ukraine highlighted the complexity and vulnerability of the semiconductor supply chain.
Some of the gases used in the production of chips come from the country, which the US says Russia is invading.
“For Micron, we have a small part of our noble gases coming from Ukraine and, of course, we carry large inventory, but more importantly have multiple sources of supply,” Micron chief executive officer Sanjay Mehrotra said, referring to a group of nonreactive gases such as neon. “While we continue to monitor the situation carefully and certainly hope the situation will de-escalate, we believe, based on current analysis, that our supply chain of noble gases is in reasonable shape.”
Shortages of electronic components, caused by a surge in demand and limited increases in production, have made the semiconductor industry particularly vulnerable to shifts in geopolitics. The COVID-19 pandemic and a series of human-made and natural hazards have also highlighted the fragility of a supply chain that spans the globe.
Manufacturing a semiconductor, which takes three to four months from start to finish, is a complex photolithographic process that requires many steps to build the tiny circuits on sheets of silicon. It is dependent on the supply of rare chemicals, and even when manufacturing is complete, chips are often moved to other parts of the world to be packaged, tested and installed in the devices that depend on them.
Mehrotra said that the shortages, which have reduced shipments of everything from home appliances to smartphones and vehicles, are improving in some respects, but have not made hoped-for progress in others.
Shipments of smartphones and computers, the two biggest product categories that use Micron’s memory chips, have been held back by shortages of basic analogue chips. That in turn has led PC makers to pare orders to companies such as Micron.
“We are coming into the year certainly expecting the supply chain shortages to improve for the non-memory components we procure from other suppliers,” Mehrotra said, adding that the rate of improvement for the shortages “is behind what we were hoping for.”
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary
RSS