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Highlights of the day: Carmakers may have to wait for months for additional foundry support

DIGITIMES staff 0

Global car sales may be recovering, but carmakers are deeply concerned about shortages of automotive components. IC foundries are trying to devote more capacity to making automotive chips, but carmakers may have to wait for months before additional foundry capacity comes online to serve them later this year. Foundries have been devoting their capacity mainly to IT and 5G applications, demand for which has been robust. Taiwan's ABF substrate suppliers have seen order visibility extending further to second-half 2021, thanks partly to strong demand from major CPU and GPU vendors. Notebook vendors' growths last year might have been higher had it not been components shortages. Acer reportedly saw its commercial notebook sales more than double in the US in 2020.

Foundries building additional capacity for automotive chips: Taiwan-based pure-play foundries will be expanding production capacity for automotive chips at a gradual pace, with additional output to arrive as early as the third quarter of this year, according to industry sources.

ABF substrate suppliers see clear order visibility stretch into 2H21: Taiwan-based IC substrate providers including Unimicron Technology, Nan Ya PCB and Kinsus Interconnect Technology have seen the visibility of orders for ABF substrates extend to second-half 2021, promising another lucrative year for them, according to industry sources.

Acer notebook sales surge in US: Acer saw its commercial notebook sales hike 119% on year in the US in 2020, according to some market observers citing research figures.