Mr. Pross, you have been in the industry for 35 years, you have served on the management committee for 14 years, and you have been the chairman of the management committee for 9 years. Infineon. As a senior person in the chip industry, have you ever encountered such a situation, the current demand overheating and delivery bottlenecks that are occurring?
At the end of the 1990s, at the beginning of this century, there was a period when the mobile communications market grew rapidly due to new technologies. The demand develops rapidly with us. We even consider allocating chips to customers on quarters. This broke out in the industry-only to decline again soon.
Is it comparable to today?
The current situation is different. Most importantly, the foundries, the semiconductor contract manufacturers and our suppliers, have been overloaded since last year. This situation did not happen very often before. It combines a lot. Almost all industrial sectors are booming. Currently, even at a high level, it is not cellular communications that are running. In particular, the data world with the theme of “working from home” is a major driving factor. For example, in the automotive industry, the situation is getting worse due to the catch-up effect of the Corona Year in 2020. The accelerated introduction of electric vehicles, autonomous driving, production networks, and the increasing demand for renewable energy. Without a chip, nothing will work.
Are you caught off guard?
Another difference from the past is the surprise effect. The current market situation has far exceeded everyone’s predictions.Market researchers initially assumed basic growth Chip market From 3% to 5%, we are now 4% to 8%, the current level of prosperity is much higher. So chip manufacturers have different planning basis. In this way, production reserves, namely capacity and inventory, will soon be used up. With such a growth rate, the industry will inevitably fall into chaos. You cannot build important production capacity in the semiconductor industry in such a short period of time; larger steps will take years.
But it is foreseeable that with the rapid development of technology, many industries are hungry for chips. What can surprise you?
The data world has become a huge driving force. For example, no one expected artificial intelligence to make breakthroughs in this way. The mining of cryptocurrency Bitcoin has also attracted a lot of computing power. All these have produced corresponding demand for semiconductors. If it attracts in certain fields, it can be quickly replaced in other application fields. In addition to the current overheating of the market, there are consequences such as geopolitical tensions, the Covid pandemic, and the sudden closure of many customers and the same rapid resumption of production. These have not been evaluated and cannot be evaluated.
