Toshiba MCU plant forced to stop work due to power outage! Or cause a significant reduction in production capacity

News on September 12, according to Taiwan media reports, Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage, a subsidiary of Toshiba Semiconductor, announced on the 12th that its semiconductor production base in Iwate Prefecture stopped work on the 11th, mainly due to a power outage during the inspection of power facilities on the 11th.

According to public information, the Iwate Plant of Toshiba Group Corporation was the Iwate Plant of Toshiba Group Corporation, which mainly produces general-purpose MCUs and other products used in in-vehicle equipment and people's livelihood products. It is worth noting that the sudden power outage did not cause damage to the production equipment of the Iwate Works, but in order to ensure the normal operation of the equipment, the full resumption of work is planned for September 17.

As for the loss, the report pointed out that during the power outage, all semi-finished products in progress on the production line were scrapped, so it is expected that shipments to customers will be affected.

It is understood that consumer demand was weak in the first half of this year, affected by this, downstream orders were continuously cut, and the signing with upstream fabs was often "irrevocable orders", making the inventory backlog of MCU manufacturers more and more serious, and had to sell products at low prices.

Recently, Texas Instruments, a well-known global analog chip company, released a Bluetooth MCU priced at only $0.79, which is very outstanding in terms of function and performance, but its price is only $0.79. MCUs have also become another key chip facing significant price cuts after driver ICs, some power management ICs and CIS image sensors.

Although the MCU market is depressed, according to IC Insights, the global market space for automotive MCU products in 2021 will be $7.6 billion, a year-on-year increase of 22.58%. IC Insights predicts that the global automotive MCU product market size will maintain a compound growth rate of 7.7% from 2022 to 2026, and its market size will reach $11 billion by 2026. Overall, the prospects of automotive MCUs are still clear.