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Non-Tech : Kirk's Market Thoughts -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elroy who wrote (12149)	10/19/2021 11:10:27 AM
From: Kirk ©	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 26807

More "O-word" called "scaling up their inventory levels" IC design houses set to continue stockpiling specific chips Jay Liu, Taipei; Willis Ke, DIGITIMES Tuesday 19 October 20210 IC design houses intend to continue scaling up their inventory levels for specific chips or applications, despite a recent slowdown in end-market demand for consumer devices, according to industry sources. Networking chips, power ICs and some other ICs for specific applications are seeing low inventory levels amid strong shipment pull-in momentum at clients, and a supply/demand balance point is not yet in sight, prompting chipmakers to boost inventory of such chips to meet downstream demand, the sources said. TSMC has also confirmed that most of its chipmaking clients incline to maintain inventory levels for their chip solutions to satisfy strong demand for terminal applications, and they continue to seek as much foundry capacity support as possible amid the persistently tight fab capacity supply, regardless of possible reversal of terminal market demand, the sources continued. Even if end-user demand softens, it is not entirely bad news for IC design houses, the sources said, reasoning that clients constantly demanding shipments of chip solutions over the past year has not only put huge pressure on their inventory management and development of new businesses, but also affected their launch of new offerings. Second-tier IC designers usually lag behind first-tier ones in vying for capacity support from foundry partners, and the capacity for their new products tend to be squeezed by rush orders placed by clients offering higher prices, further deferring their rollouts of new products, the sources said. Accordingly, once terminal demand loosens, such designers can move to adjust their product portfolios to secure a healthy long-term business development, the sources added. Actually, IC design houses are likely to adjust their inventory strategy in 2022, and they may slow down their inventory stockpiling momentum as long as their inventory rebounds to normal levels or overbooking ratios prove overly high, the sources concluded. Credit: DIGITIMES digitimes.com