Japan's silicon wafer supply affected by the earthquake

DRAMeXchange, a semiconductor professional research department, pointed out that due to the severe earthquake, the main nuclear power plants in the northeastern Japan showed a state of shutdown. Residents living near the Fukushima-1 nuclear power station not only evacuated and evacuated, but also Boron 1 and 3 were injected with boric acid, respectively. Official waste furnace. The power supply in Northeast Japan is in a state of blackout, and the week beginning March 14 will also impact the operation of the northeastern industrial area. It may even be a phenomenon of limited electricity and blackouts for two weeks in a row. The Kanto region and the industrial areas in the northeast face power shortages. Or the crisis of blackouts, there have been plans to turn off power cuts.

Among them, the silicon wafer fabs Shin-Etsu Semiconductor (Shin-Etsu Chemical) and SUMCO were the two most affected. In addition to the damage to some of the production lines, they could only temporarily suspend work because of power outages; plus the areas east of Kanto in Japan. Traffic is also affected. For the Japanese semiconductor industry, the supply of silicon wafers will be tight. This will cause the global semiconductor industry other than Japan to have a material-rush effect.

Jibang Technology pointed out that the silicon wafers supplied by Shin-Etsu Semiconductor are mainly 12-inch and 12-inch silicon wafers, and 95% of them are supplied to the semiconductor industry, including Elpida and Toshiba. Japanese semiconductor factories are still assessing the degree of influence. In the spot market, South Korea's Samsung and Hynix also began to stop quoting. In Taiwan, Powerchip Semiconductor has suspended DRAM spot prices and will wait for assessments to be adjusted. Nanke also conducted assessments and will make adjustments depending on the circumstances.

The spot price of the memory is in the China market. The expected supply will be affected during the weekend and the price has started to rise. It is expected that after the Monday (March 14) work, the overall spot market is expected to have a clear response. Before the peak season, the DRAM production fluctuations caused by the unexpected Japanese earthquake disaster may cause PCs, system factories, etc., and make DRAM stocking more active during the peak season, and let the contract market begin to warm up.

Cibang stated that the Toshiba NAND production line has not been affected much, but Toshiba is still assessing the follow-up effect on the supply of raw materials, traffic disruption and the impact on Japan’s infrastructure. As for Toshiba's 12-inch plant in Iwate, it is based on logic ICs and consumer ICs. Due to the close proximity to the epicentre, Toshiba’s production of logic ICs and consumer ICs in Iwate Prefecture was severely damaged, while the memory production base in Kansai, Japan, had little impact.

Japan's semiconductor factory production base distribution maps Tobba and Fab4, a flash memory plant jointly invested by Toshiba and SanDisk, are located in Yokkaichi, Mie Prefecture, Japan. Near Nagoya in Kansai, about 800 kilometers away from the epicentre, no serious transmission has been reported so far. Disaster situation. However, due to the sophisticated manufacturing process of Fab3 and Fab4, according to an official statement issued by SanDisk, there was a brief shutdown of the production line at the time of the earthquake, but it quickly returned to normal production and no casualties were reported. The overall detailed damage assessment Still in progress, it is expected that there will be a relevant assessment report after March 14.

Based on past experience, DRAMeXchange expects that manufacturers will have follow-up actions taken by the overhauling machine. At the same time, although the semiconductor production process has not been severely damaged, due to the serious damage to sea, land and air traffic, the impact of raw material supply and transportation infrastructure construction on subsequent shipments will be greater than the damage to the production line. In the next two weeks, due to shipping difficulties, supply may be affected.