According to the Economic Daily, despite the interference of the COVID-19 epidemic, the capacity utilization of wafer foundries remained at a high level in the first half of the year, but the supply of mainstream node processes mainly producing panel driver ICs is still tight. TrendForce (TrendForce) ) Optoelectronic research predicts that this situation is unlikely to improve until the second half of 2020, and the possibility of capacity being squeezed out or price increase in disguise still exists.
Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 outbreak at the beginning of the year, panel demand has changed drastically, but the demand for large-size panel driver ICs has not changed significantly. Analyst Fan Boyu pointed out that the main reason is that the current 8-inch capacity of the fab has not been significantly expanded, but most IC demand is concentrated in the 8-inch factory, especially the 0.1-micron node. Therefore, for DDI manufacturers, if the order demand is adjusted rashly It is very likely that when the demand returns to the temperature, the original production capacity cannot be obtained, so it can only continue to maintain the order demand for wafer foundries.
After the second quarter of this year, the demand for IT panels suddenly increased sharply. Although the panel driver IC factory can adjust the product portfolio through the configured wafer capacity, it still cannot meet the demand for the IT panel market, so the tight capacity is still large. Unsolved problems of panel drive IC manufacturers.
TrendForce said that after the epidemic entered the global pandemic, the demand for the smartphone market also fell sharply, and some mobile phone brands changed to extend the life cycle of old models, or expand the size of low-end models as a short-term stable strategy . This slowed down the speed of integrated drive and touch IC mainstream nodes moving from 12 inches of 80 nanometers to 55 nanometers.
At the same time, most manufacturers consider the cost and the progress of new product development, and most of them still continue to use the existing 80-nanometer integrated driver and touch IC. The 55-nanometer new specification development and mass production plans are still in progress, but the pace has slowed down .