Industry in Germany is struggling again to secure chips. Noureddine Seddiki, head of the Frankfurt electronics broker “Sand and Silicon” told Handelsblatt that the normal lead time of eight weeks has ballooned to about 50 weeks for some products. He added that several semiconductor makers are no longer taking on new customers.
Chip manufacturers are seizing the moment. Tanjeff Schadt, a semiconductor analyst at Strategy&, said that key suppliers to the German industry have recently announced price hikes and tighter delivery terms. According to Seddiki, the biggest jump is in memory chips, with buyers now forced to pay three to four times what they paid last autumn – and only if they can actually receive any units at all.
The root of the new chip crisis, Bo Lybaek, chief executive of Danish electronics group GPV, points to “high demand driven mainly by artificial intelligence and data centers”.
Capgemini’s semiconductor specialist Peter Fintl warns that swift relief is unlikely. Scaling up chip production quickly is difficult because the supply chain is complex and, at times, hinges on a few vendors whose capacity expansion is slow or reluctant.