Over the last 12 months, the electronic components industry has experienced unprecedented challenges. Covid-19, elevated demand for consumer electronics, unexpected demand in the automotive market, and tensions between the U.S. and China have all conspired to create a perfect storm. The pressure on global supply chains can be felt across every sector, but none more so than the semiconductor industry, which depends on highly specialized equipment and skilled personnel to operate at peak production.
Factors of relevance to Suntsu Electronics and our customers is the strain on IC fabrication that supports the production of Temperature Compensated Crystal Oscillators (TCXO’s). We reported late last year that a fire at the Asahi Kasei Microsystems (AKM) factory in Japan was going to cause a shortage in the market and now 4 months later we are still seeing the fallout. As ICs from AKM were our primary source for analog compensated TCXOs, we have been unable to meet even a fraction of the demand for those parts and stock from all manufacturers using the AKM IC has been gobbled up through the broker market.
Rumors were floating around recently that AKM was going to start coming back online with the help of Renesas Electronics and there was hope that supply would recover. Then last week, Renesas experienced a fire at their production facility and a bad situation got worse.
The elevated global demand on an already constrained semiconductor industry is driving even greater production delays, extended lead times, and elevated costs. Our supply of digitally compensated TCXO IC’s is getting pinched in the process and deliveries to support our TCXO production have become erratic and unreliable as our partners suffer from unprecedented demand on top of material and labor shortages down the entire supply chain. Simply put, our ability to meet the demand from our customers has become severely compromised and our lead times for new orders are pushing out further every week as material becomes more and more constrained.
We are doing everything in our power to secure as much material and production allocation as possible, but the global situation remains fluid, and as such, so does our ability to produce parts. We will do our best to provide updated delivery schedules as expediently as possible.
Thank you for your continued support and understanding! Reach out to a Suntsu sales rep if you have any follow up questions.
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