Taipei: The massive earthquake in Taiwan sparked concerns about chip shortage in select pockets which could result in major supply-chain glitches. However, semiconductor manufacturers have reportedly announced that they have restored operations at their facilities.
On Wednesday, Taiwan was hit by a 7.4 magnitude earthquake, the most powerful in at least 25 years, and this is likely to tighten supply of tech components such as display panels and semiconductors.
The quake killed 10 people and nearly 1,070 people were injured while about 700 people were either still missing or stranded.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC)- world’s largest contract chipmaker- said that more than 70 per cent of its chip manufacturing equipment had resumed production after a period of suspension due the earthquake. Some parts of the plant were immediately evacuated, but employees later returned to their workstations, it said. It also informed that some of the equipment at certain plants had been damaged during the quake, disrupting production lines although a full assessment was being carried out and efforts were being made to restore plants to full capacity. TSMC supplies to companies like Apple and Nvidia.
As per research firm TrendForce, shipments of television panels could be affected as manufacturers have already been operating at near full capacity globally to meet demand. This could result in a rise in TV panel prices in April.
Taiwan plays an important role in the global chip supply chain and manufacturers in the island have been working towards hardening their factories against earthquakes; many even use automatic shutdown systems to minimize damage to their production and tools, analysts said. The report further added that while most of their facilities are not close to the earthquake’s epicenter, many of the firms had evacuated some of their manufacturing plants and shut down some facilities for inspections.
