The failure of chip deliveries from the manufacturer Nexperia is putting the auto industry under increasing pressure. A first prominent example of short-time work could be the Bosch factory in Salzgitter, where control devices for drive technology are manufactured. A thousand employees would be affected if chips were no longer delivered – and the company is preparing for this, as IG Metall confirms. A company agreement on short-time work is to be concluded this week. There will probably be more similar reports in the near future. Volkswagen even announced a production stop for the Golf this week. An interim solution has now been found until this Thursday, and Reformation Day on Friday forms a welcome bridge. But no one wants to give a forecast beyond that at the moment. This has to be reassessed from day to day, says Volkswagen. The European automobile association ACEA expects that the current chip supply in the auto industry will only last for a few weeks. It is becoming increasingly clear that a fundamental solution to the chip shortage can only be found at the political level. The Dutch government took control of the chip manufacturer out of fear that the company would be broken up by the Chinese owner, the Reuters news agency now reports, citing several people familiar with the events. Accordingly, Chinese Nexperia boss Zhang Xuezheng planned to lay off 40 percent of the workforce in Europe. The next plan was to relocate systems from the Hamburg factory, reports Reuters. The auto industry has been extremely badly affected. Initially, the harsh intervention by the Netherlands, which was responded to by China with an export ban on Nexperia chips, was justified by relatively harmless misconduct on the part of the Nexperia boss. There were also reports that the USA had used its influence, which in turn was waging a conflict with China over chips. More than 6,000 products suitable for automobiles: A look at semiconductors from the chip manufacturer NexperiaDaniel PilarThis will also be a topic when US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet this week. At the same time, according to the Bloomberg news agency, there are talks between the EU and China about a temporary export permit to secure supplies until a longer-term solution is negotiated. The automotive industry is extremely badly affected because the demand here is particularly great. While there are up to 500 Nexperia chips in a car, there are eight in a cell phone. Roughly half of the business comes from the automotive industry. The company, which was once separated from the Philips Group, specializes in discrete semiconductors. These are tiny particles that often only consist of a single chip on which only a single function is implemented, so that a certain amount of current flows under certain conditions. Such standard chips are the basic building blocks for many things. The spectrum of applications ranges from lighting switches or displays to rain sensors to power and power control in the air conditioning system or the emergency braking assistant. The smallest components are only the size of a speck of dust and are barely visible, even though they are already packaged into integrated circuit packages (ICs). “The fact that Nexperia exists in Hamburg is part of the resilience strategy when it comes to chips,” explained Nexperia board member Achim Kempe in an interview with the F.A.Z. in the summer: “Nexperia is the last remaining manufacturer of essential semiconductors in Europe.” Now it is clear that the resilience is fragile. The chips themselves are manufactured in Hamburg by applying extremely fine three-dimensional structures to circular, thin silicon disks in many steps involving exposure, etching and doping. Up to 500,000 chips are created on a single wafer disk with a diameter of 20 centimeters. The next step, the so-called packaging, no longer takes place in Hamburg. The wafer is cut using extremely fine diamond tools and, depending on the application, the individual chips are glued together in specific combinations to form a structure and encapsulated in a miniature housing. These relatively labor-intensive steps are largely carried out in Dongguan, China. And exports from there are now blocked. Nexperia advertises more than 6,000 automotive-grade products on its website. The fact that Nexperia has already opened packaging plants in Malaysia and the Philippines now prevents stocks in the industry from dwindling too quickly. The Volkswagen managers have nevertheless pulled out all the stops to find enough chips in time – and there is now enough stock for car production in the next few days at least. The contacts that were made during the previous chip shortage crisis during the corona pandemic are now being reactivated. At that time, the procurement managers, and sometimes also the CEOs from the automotive industry, had personally become supplicants to the Nexperia management, even if there was no direct customer relationship. In the meantime, they also made do with chips that were obtained from dealers and brokers at greatly increased prices. But: Do chips that were actually intended for heating control fit into a washing machine or a robot so easily in a Volkswagen or a Mercedes? In principle that’s how it is. In vehicle construction, everything depends on so-called homologation. A detailed check is carried out to ensure that the systems in the vehicle meet the applicable safety and environmental standards, including in heat and heavy rain, during long-term loads or in frontal collisions. View into the clean room of the chip manufacturer Nexperia in Hamburg on May 3rd, 2024. Daniel Pilar Nexperia advertises more than 6,000 automotive-compatible products on its website. The product range can be compared to what a screw dealer offers. Many different types can be used in many completely different applications. Many simply have to be cheap, practical and available, some of them have to withstand extreme situations. More on the topic Accordingly, many standard chips have to be used flexibly, explains a VW spokesman when asked. They are located in components that serve more convenience, such as the rain sensor, but also in a switch that is responsible for opening the door after an accident. By shifting the requirements within the vehicle, Volkswagen gives itself the opportunity to use standard chips from previously external suppliers for non-critical applications. This is not a simple solution either, because it is based on the willingness to cooperate across the industry. The supply chains in the auto industry go over a dozen stages or more and become more confusing for the car manufacturer with each stage. For example, Volkswagen’s hundred or so factories are supplied by 60,000 direct suppliers. These companies, in turn, often have thousands of suppliers and so do they, and so on. In total, there are more than a million companies that supply their products for the cars and trucks of the various group brands. Some at Volkswagen even estimate that there could ultimately be over two million suppliers.
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