Global diode shortage goes on

Blame the car manufacturers

The world is being gripped by a diode shortage, and it has been that way since 2017, and the drought is likely to last until the second quarter.

DigiTimes has been chatting with Keh-shew Lu, president, and CEO of Diodes, a US-based supplier of discrete power semiconductor devices who is blaming the IoT and car manufacturers who want more intelligent cars.

Lu said that Demand used to be coming mainly from PCs 20-30 years ago and from mobile phones 5-10 years ago. But now the rapid growth of automotive electronics and the trend of new energy vehicles replacing gas-fueled ones will linger for at least ten years.

He said that nobody could give a clear-cut definition for IoT or predict what IoT devices – which may include sports cameras, air conditioning systems, smart speakers and many more – will be available. It is similar to smart speakers, which few people knew about two to three years ago, Lu said, adding that the proliferation of IoT applications will be endless.

Demand keeps outgrowing production capacity expansion. Autos, IoT devices, smartphones and other terminal products are adopting more parts and components, which therefore have become more and more expensive.

To bring down costs, more parts and components with low power consumption, low interference and increasingly smaller sizes are badly needed, including ESD (electrostatic discharge) protection component that cannot be packaged with old packaging practices.

However, the mature diode industry does not seem to be rushing to sort itself out or expand. Lu predicted that its tight supply would at least last through the second quarter.