The moderate optimism with which the semiconductor industry had started 2022 is gradually cooling. If at the end of March it was ASML, one of the great benchmarks in the sector, which warned that the shortage would last a long time, now it is Susquehanna Financial Group that is holding back. And it does so by putting data on the table. According to their study, in March the average lead time for semiconductors increased slightly to stand at 26.6 weeks.
The figure is relevant for several reasons. The main and most important is that it represents a two-day rebound from the previous month. Beyond that increase, there is another symbolic reading: in practice it means that, at least in March, chipmakers took more than half a year to deliver their parts, such as memory chips or microcontrollers. As detailed The Registerrepresents the highest overall average lead time for semiconductors noted by Susquehanna analysts since they began collecting data five years ago.
In autumn 2020, an average of 13.9 weeks passed between the order and the delivery of the parts. Regardless of the global brand, not all components have the same delay. The worst data, in fact, was recorded by the analog chips, which after adding 18 days to their account already have a delivery margin above the 30 weekswhich represents almost seven months.
A “cocktail” of factors
The report also leaves some positive data. The delivery time of passive components, such as resistors or capacitors, for example, decreased slightly. Another favorable reading is that, although the waiting margins are growing again, they are doing so at a slower speed than in 2021. The data collected by Bloomberg help to draw a general perspective of its evolution. If between January and March 2021 the delay had grown by 20.7% – it went from 15 to 18.1 -, in the same period of 2022 it was “only” 3.5%. December to January even went down.
Why the increase in March? Susquehanna’s report points to some fundamental factors that were concentrated last month and added to a crisis that the industry has long dragged on as a legacy of the pandemic: the earthquake that hit Japan in the middle of the month; the war in Ukraine, a key country in the distribution of neon gas; or the blockades that the “Covid zero” policy applied by the Chinese authorities in their cities is causing.
A cocktail that for Chris Rolland, an analyst at Susquehanna Financial Group, “will have a short-term impact in the first quarter, but it may have lingering effects in the severely restricted supply chain during the year”. It is not the only voice that draws a complex scenario in, at least, the medium term. ASML recognized in March that access to chips will continue to be limited during the next two years , in the automotive sector there are those who believe that the crisis will last until “well into 2022” and some consultants even extend it to 2023.
