Just after the Lunar New Year holiday ended and the first working week of the Year of the Tiger in Renyin, Microchip, a major American chip maker, issued a price increase notice. Subsequently, Western Digital, a major flash memory manufacturer, also issued a price increase notice.

　　1. Microchip: Raise product prices from March 1

　　On February 11, supply chain sources broke the news that Microchip released the latest price increase document to its agents. The notice stated that Microchip will increase prices on March 1 and notify agents to inform downstream customers.

　　The document shows that most of the products of Microchip's business units will be affected by price adjustments, and the specific price increases will vary depending on the products and customers, and specific price increase information will be provided to agents in the future. Microchip said new orders, inventory and backlogs will all be traded at the increased prices, effective March 1.

　　Microchip said that the new crown epidemic has had a huge negative impact on the semiconductor industry, and the entire global semiconductor supply chain is facing unprecedented challenges. From semiconductor materials to fabs, assembly and testing, every link in the industry chain faces huge demands. In order to meet the huge demand from downstream customers, Microchip and suppliers are making continuous efforts to increase production capacity. As Microchip's costs increased, the company had to pass some of the costs on to customers, taking price hikes.

　　In this regard, the international electronic business information to the relevant people of Microchip to verify, the reply is "the price increase notice information is true."

　　According to the Quiksol report, Microchip's market demand is quite strong in January 2022. Among them, the prices of popular models such as ATMEGA328P-AU have increased significantly. At present, Microchip's production capacity is insufficient, resulting in prolonged product delivery. At present, some Microchip products are delivered on time. has been extended to more than 52 weeks.

　　2. Western Digital: Prices of all its Flash products have increased

　　According to the news on February 15, following the suspension of production at the two NAND Flash flash memory factories of Western Digital and Kioxia in Japan due to raw material pollution, on February 14, Western Digital issued a notice to customers, announcing an immediate increase in the prices of all Flash products.

　　On February 9, due to the contamination of materials used to produce flash memory chips, the joint venture between Western Digital and Kioxia’s factory in Yokkaichi, Japan and Kitakami factory stopped production, and a large number of wafers were scrapped. It is expected to wait until March 2022 at the earliest. normal production can be resumed.

　　Western Digital said at the time that the accident would reduce the output of its 3D NAND flash memory by at least 6.5EB. Given the severity of the production disruption, expect to see a significant impact on SSD supply in the near future.

　　Western Digital said in the notification letter: "Our costs have increased significantly in the short term, and we are working hard to assess the long-term impact of this incident. Therefore, we will immediately increase the prices of all Flash products."

　　According to a report by market research and investigation agency TrendForce, considering that Kioxia may also lose 6.5EB of NAND Flash production, the total loss is expected to be about 13EB. It is equivalent to about 10% of the Flash consumption in the global market in the first quarter. This event will reverse the NAND Flash market in the second quarter of 2022, driving up the price of NAND Flash.

　　The flash memory production capacity of Kioxia and Western Digital accounts for more than 32% of the total global NAND chip market, which is close to the leading Samsung. The related incidents caused market panic. Previously, it was reported that Phison has raised the quotation of flash memory modules by 15% for the first time, while other manufacturers have suspended quotations.

　　On February 10, supply chain sources broke the news that Team Group Technology issued an "emergency notice", saying that due to the semiconductor source of the NAND Flash supplier Kioxia and Western Digital's announcement factory If the material is polluted, Team Group will suspend quotation and accept orders from February 10 to 11, 2022, and it is expected to resume quotation on February 15, 2022.

　　Flash memory chips are an important part of many electronic devices, ranging from mobile phones to automobiles and supercomputers. Amid the ongoing global semiconductor shortage, chip production has suffered setbacks one after another, which may lead to rising chip prices.