German industry is again fighting to secure chips. “The usual delivery time of eight weeks has jumped to as much as 50 weeks for certain products” said Noureddine Seddiki, head of the Frankfurt‑based electronics broker Sand and Silicon, in a Handelsblatt interview (Thursday edition). Some chip manufacturers reportedly no longer accept new customers.
Manufacturers are taking advantage of the current demand. “Several key chip suppliers for the German industry have announced price increases and stricter delivery terms in recent weeks” explained Tanjeff Schadt, a semiconductor specialist at Strategy®, a consulting firm. According to Seddiki, the biggest price surge is for memory chips. Buyers are forced to pay three to four times the price they paid last fall – if they can get any goods at all.
The trigger for this new chip crisis, according to Bo Lybaek, chief executive of Danish electronics producer GPV, is “high demand, largely driven by artificial intelligence and data centres”.
A rapid improvement is unlikely, cautioned Peter Fintl, semiconductor specialist at Capgemini, a technology consulting firm. It is difficult to increase chip production in the short term because of a complex supply chain that often relies on individual suppliers whose capacities can only be expanded slowly – or may not want to.
