While near-normal production at the Renesas Naka plant is good news for the auto business, it won’t solve the industry’s shortage by itself, said Phil Amsrud, senior principal analyst with IHS Markit who tracks automotive semiconductors.
Renesas is the third-largest maker of automotive chips by revenue, and the largest supplier of microcontroller units, which are widely used on automobiles, Amsrud said. But it contracts for a majority of auto chip production from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., which is still working to increase output, Amsrud said. “Naka by itself is not going to be able to fill the entire hole that we have in the supply chain,” he said.
It will take until the third quarter for the auto industry to see the improved output from TSMC and other chip foundries, but it won’t be enough to fill a backlog, he said. Even from October through December, the auto industry still won’t have enough chips, he said. “We should start seeing an improvement, but we won’t be able to ship everything we didn’t fill earlier,” Amsrud said.
