ST's three French factories are on strike, and the chip shortage may become more serious
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Due to the impact of the epidemic, upstream chip manufacturers were too conservative in their estimates of market demand in the second half of the year, resulting in a shortage of many chips when the peak season of the electronics industry arrived and demand grew rapidly. In the past two months, many chip manufacturers have been chasing orders, resulting in full production capacity of upstream wafer fabs and packaging and testing, and supply exceeding demand, leading to price increases.
At the same time, against the backdrop of the Sino-US technology war, in order to ensure the secure supply of key components, many Chinese mobile phone manufacturers represented by Huawei are also stockpiling large quantities of goods. Due to the interweaving of various factors, many chips on the market have experienced shortages and price increases.
For example, in the past two months, AVX tantalum capacitors, 8-inch wafers, MOSFETs, some Xilinx FPGA chips, ST (STMicroelectronics) MCUs, and some chips from TI (Texas Instruments) have all experienced shortages and price increases.
It is reported that the original delivery time of some TI chips has been extended to 26 weeks. Many MCUs of ST are also in serious shortage, such as 030CCT6 and 030C8T6.
On November 5th local time, according to foreign media reports, after ST management decided not to increase the wages of all employees, the three main trade unions within ST in France (CAD, CFDT and CGT) have begun strikes in all ST factories in France.
Reports say some employees went on strike at the ST plant in Crolles, France last night. There were 60 strikers in the morning shift and about 150 strikers in the daytime shift. The CAD union expects 200 strikers in the night shift.
"On Wednesday, October 28, 2020, ST management showed incredible disdain for ST employees and their work by deciding not to increase employee salaries this year, without recognizing their efforts," CAD said.
CAD claimed that ST management made workers pay for COVID-19 and treated them as "mougeons" (a cross between sheep and pigeons).
CAD said: "ST management refused to give employees a pay rise this year, citing the additional costs of 16.9 million in response to COVID-19, including 6.4 million in COVID-19 premiums and factory compensation. Bonuses paid to employees during maternity leave were also reclaimed, as were wages for other employees who did not work at the factory or were unable to work at the factory during COVID-19."
“ST’s management has also directly and openly provided funding for COVID measures to only some employees, which is definitely not good,” CAD concluded.
At the same time, the CGT union pointed out that the 100 senior managers of ST France receive an average of 200,000 euros per year and can receive 50,000 euros worth of stocks for free. The implication is that for other ordinary employees, even their wages have not increased, which is extremely unfair.
According to ST's latest third-quarter financial report as of September 26, 2020, net revenue in the third quarter was $2.67 billion, up 27.8% from the previous quarter, 690 basis points higher than the highest expectation, and up 4.4% year-on-year; gross profit margin was 36.0%; operating profit margin was 12.3%, up 208.8% from the previous quarter; net profit was $242 million, up 169.1% from the previous quarter. At the same time, net income in the fourth quarter is expected to be $2.99 billion; gross profit margin is 38.5%.
Judging from ST's financial data, it can be said that under the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic, ST's performance in the third quarter was still very good. Against the backdrop of improved performance, employees will naturally have a lot of objections to ST not increasing their wages.
According to the data, the French General Labor Union CGT, the French Democratic Workers' Confederation CFDT, the French Employees' Union-Managers' Union and the Executive General Union CFE-CGC are the main trade union organizations within ST. The CAD mentioned above should refer to CFE-CGC. Among them, CFE-CGC and CFDT represent more than half of STMicroelectronics' employees in France.
In March of this year, as the new coronavirus spread in Europe, in response to workers' concerns about being infected with the coronavirus, ST reached an agreement with CFDT and CFE-CGC to reduce production at its French factories by 50%.
STMicroelectronics is one of the manufacturers with the broadest semiconductor product lines in the industry, with more than 3,000 main product types, ranging from discrete diodes and transistors to complex system-on-chip (SoC) devices, to complete platform solutions including reference designs, application software, manufacturing tools and specifications. STMicroelectronics is a major supplier in various industrial fields, with a variety of advanced technologies, intellectual property (IP) resources and world-class manufacturing processes.
Currently, ST's main wafer fabs are in France and Italy, including three wafer fabs in France, namely: the 8-inch wafer fab in Rousset, France, which is ST's largest 8-inch wafer fab and just invested US$1.4 billion to upgrade its production line in 2019; the wafer fab in Tours, France, is ST's main factory for developing gallium nitride process technology; the Crolles factory mentioned above where a strike occurred last night is ST's 12-inch wafer fab, mainly producing FD-SOI process technology.
Obviously, if the strike continues at ST's three factories in France, it may have a very adverse impact on the production of ST-related chips, further aggravating the shortage of ST chips.
It is also worth noting that on October 28, local time, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that the national lockdown policy would be re-launched on October 30, which will last at least until December 1, and whether the lockdown policy needs to be extended will be evaluated based on the results. This move may further affect the production of ST's three factories in France.
Although ST had outsourced part of its chip production to TSMC and Samsung to alleviate the problem of insufficient production capacity before announcing a 50% production cut at its French factory in March this year, with all orders from wafer foundries currently full, even if ST wanted to increase outsourcing, it may be difficult to get enough production capacity.
Therefore, at a time when ST's own production capacity is already tight, coupled with strikes and a second lockdown in France due to the COVID-19 pandemic, its chip production may be more adversely affected, and subsequent shortages may become more serious and may last for a long time.
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