Analysts say Taiwan earthquake hits some chip production, disrupting Asia's supply chain

Analysts say Taiwan earthquake hits some chip production, disrupting Asia's supply chain

Analysts say Taiwan earthquake hits some chip production, disrupting Asia's supply chain

After some chip makers from TSMC to UMC suspended operations for inspections, analysts said. , the Taiwan earthquake, the largest since 1999, is likely to disrupt the entire Asian semiconductor supply chain. Prepare equipment and relocate employees.

A powerful 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck Taiwan's east coast near Hualien County on Wednesday morning, killing nine people and injuring 800 others.

The island is home to the world's largest Taiwanese chip manufacturer and plays a vital role in the global chip supply chain. is Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., which supplies chips to Apple and Nvidia.

The country also has small chip manufacturers such as UMC, Vanguard International Semiconductor, and PowerChip Semiconductor Manufacturing.

Although most of their facilities are not close to the epicenter of the earthquake, many companies said they had evacuated some of their production facilities and closed some facilities for inspection.

TSMC announced Wednesday that work at the suspended construction site has resumed after inspection, and that affected facilities are scheduled to resume production later tonight.

Chipmakers facing various disruptions at their Hsinchu, Tainan and Taichung facilities will have to delay some shipments and increase wafer usage to compensate, according to a memo from consultancy Isaiah Research. It is said that there may be.

"Mitigating the effects of the earthquake requires careful measures and time to restore production and maintain quality standards, which leads to further impacts and obstacles," they said.

TSMC's operations in advanced process nodes such as 4/5nm and 3nm in Tainan have been temporarily suspended. Additionally, extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography equipment, critical to these advanced nodes, was shut down on site for 8 to 15 hours.

Barclays analysts said some advanced semiconductor factories will need to operate smoothly around the clock for weeks in a vacuum. The outage would disrupt processes and increase pricing pressure on the industry.