Passive components
What’s behind the passive components shortage?
Fortsetzung des Artikels von Teil 1
Expanding production capacities...
Instead, companies prefer to invest in the expansion of production facilities for the small 0402 case size and smaller. With MLCCs in 0402 and 0201 case sizes, experts estimate that each size accounts for around 35 percent of MLCC production. They estimate that case sizes such as 0603 and larger now account for only about 20 percent of total production worldwide. In recent years, growth rates in production have only been seen in 0201 and 01005 case sizes as well as even smaller sizes.
However, this is of little help to normal European customers in industrial electronics. The recommended switch to smaller case sizes can only be made in the next generation of device development at the earliest, unless a redesign is made with all the ensuing consequences. Ussama Margieh, FAE Team Manager Europe at AVX, also points out that “these small case sizes generally function with supply voltages of 3 and 5 V, however, 24 V is common in industrial applications and 12 or 48 V for applications in the automotive industry.”
Resistors, especially R-Chips, are also particularly affected by delivery difficulties in the area of passive components. Here, too, the dominance of the Asian market is evident. Its volume in the previous year amounted to around USD 1.390 billion with linear resistors, while Europe accounted for “only” USD 490 million. Yageo accounts for about one third of global production capacity for R-Chips. In addition, labelling is very widespread in this area. Production bottlenecks at one manufacturer can therefore have an impact on a whole range of resistor suppliers.
Ultimately, users in the classic areas of industrial electronics will probably also have to become accustomed to smaller case sizes if they do not want to be at the mercy of one or two suppliers at some point. But what are component manufacturers doing in view of the fact that the circumstances in individual areas can only be described with the word allocation?
After apparently little or nothing has been done for a long time, manufacturers are investing in the expansion of new production capacities. Why it has taken so long can be attributed to the fact that “revenues of the passive components segment are still low and therefore no large-scale investments are possible,” says Joachim Pfülb. In particular, Murata has invested heavily. This year, EUR 2 billion will be invested in the construction of new production capacities. “Should it be necessary,” says Reinhard Sperlich, “we will invest the same amount in expanding production again next year.”
According to Olaf Lüthje, Senior Vice President Business Marketing, at Vishay Passives: “This year, Vishay plans to invest a total of around USD 225 million in the expansion of production, both in the area of active and passive components.” This represents a significant increase over the previous year, when the total investment amounted to USD 170 million. How long the current high demand will continue and thus lead to availability problems is not yet foreseeable, according to his assessment.
Nobody wants to be accused of idleness. “Our incoming orders for MLCCs and resistors are still enormous,” reports, for example, Iris Reck, Deputy Managing Director Europe at Yageo Europe, “and as the intense phase in Asia starts in the third quarter, we expect a further escalation for the rest of the year.” In view of this situation, Yageo began three years ago with increased investments in production expansion and since then has increased production capacities for MLCCs by 25 percent, and even by 50 percent for resistors.
“We have now built up additional production capacities for all products with critical delivery times,” assures Josef Vissing, Deputy Head of Sales at TDK-Europe, “and delivery times for product types that are in strong demand should therefore be noticeably shortened by 2019 at the latest.” For him, the speed with which additional capacities can be built depends above all on the ability of machine and plant manufacturers to supply standard equipment. The delivery times are often one year. If a situation then arises, in which everyone wants to expand all at once, these delivery times would become even longer.
Oliver Konz, CEO of Würth Elektronik eiSos, does not expect the situation with MLCCs to ease before the end of this year at the earliest. He regards the capacities that have been built up in the meantime – “if they really did exist on such a broad scale” – will only have an effect in the long term. With its clear focus on medium-sized customers, the company has invested EUR 30 million this year in expanding its production capacities, “and we will continue to do so next year, if the market situation continues to develop in this way.”
- What’s behind the passive components shortage?
- Expanding production capacities...
