How to build a good relationship with the original chip manufacturer and become the best customer when there is a chip shortage?

Since the chip shortage crisis last year, many friends and friends of friends have approached me directly or indirectly, asking if they can get certain chips, or can they introduce the person in charge for further communication? Unfortunately, in this rare moment of chip shortage crisis, when semiconductor manufacturers, agents and even many customers are all eyeing it, it is of little use to prepare for the battle.

For example, a certain chip product for which the author was responsible for its entire life cycle (from definition, development, mass production to marketing and price/capacity planning) has been in short supply since last year, and even the most important customers cannot guarantee sufficient supply. . A key customer learned that small quantities could be purchased through informal channels, so he obtained physical evidence through an indiscriminate operation and complained to the original manufacturer about channel speculation. Although it was finally clarified that this was material that had been leaked a few years ago and has now expired, it can be seen that improvising when there is a core shortage cannot be regarded as a way to make up for the situation.

Therefore, establishing a good relationship with semiconductor original manufacturers, especially with product lines that can determine product distribution, price and production capacity, may be a life-saving straw when the next core shortage crisis occurs.

So what to do? First of all, you need to stand from the perspective of the original product line and know what the product line manager responsible for specific products, as well as the director or vice president at the next level responsible for the entire product line, need. Simply put, the work content of product line personnel includes not only the revenue and profits of the products and product lines they are responsible for, but also the planning and development of new products. Therefore, the good customers in their minds are not limited to those who can bring a lot of revenue, but also include those customers who can help develop the next generation of products, even small and medium-sized customers with small or even no revenue.

An electric vehicle parts manufacturer in Shenzhen is one of the good customers for such a product line. When I visited for the first time, my company's business volume with this customer was still very small, and I only followed the arrangements of the local agent. After the two parties broke the ice, the communication quickly entered a substantive stage - the customer not only introduced their projects and needs in detail, but also very openly shared their observations of the market and judgments about the future, such as which topologies and controls Will the method become mainstream in the industry or gradually decline, as well as the competitive landscape of the market in which the company operates and what its competitors are doing.

An exchange meeting was like a small market survey, and the value of the information obtained exceeded the expectations before the visit. As the direct person in charge of the customer, the main focus of sales is how to sell more products to the customer. However, product line personnel like the author can learn from it which product features are common needs of customers in the market, which ones are only needed by a small number of customers, and which features are just icing on the cake. In addition, you can also profile the current and future market size of the product you are responsible for. This information is very important for product line planning, product roadmap (product roadmap), defining new products (product definition), and building a persuasive business case (business case).

In subsequent emails and phone calls, the manufacturer is also likely to provide some quantitative data, such as the company's future purchase volume and market demand scale expectations, as well as its judgment on future price trends. In view of the value of the information provided by this customer, the author recommended this company to the vice president of the product line as a potential important customer, and it was quickly recognized by the product line management, and many high-level visits were subsequently arranged. If the company has a chip shortage problem, you can imagine that they have a direct channel to the top of the product line. When the product line distributes goods, it is no longer just a cold customer code.

Another type of good customer is one who can help the product line identify and fill gaps. There is a well-known North American auto parts supplier. A few years ago, it chose a certain bare chip product (bare die) that I was responsible for as the core of its electric vehicle inverter system and supplied it to many OEMs around the world. Although this company does not involve too much information other than the project, as a senior supplier in the automotive industry, the company's project requirements, product requirements and time nodes and other related documents are complete and clear, allowing the author and designers to have a targeted understanding of the product. Performance and business prospects are roughly expected at the beginning of the project, significantly reducing the complexity of the project.

During the project, the product test reports submitted by the customer at each stage were also very detailed and clear, and explained the experimental details and the impact of a certain performance at the application level. As an expert in systems, this company has also specially designed some device-level test projects for boundary application environments. It not only tells the original manufacturer how to test, but also why it needs to be tested, which has greatly benefited the chip development team. These customers are willing to share their know-how to help the original manufacturers design better products, and the original manufacturers are also willing to reciprocate when the supply of chips is in short supply.

There are good customers and there are bad customers. The difference here isn't a moral one, it's that the product line doesn't benefit much from talking to these customers. Most of the time, these customers only have one-way communication with the original manufacturer - they require a lot of information from the semiconductor original manufacturer, but give too little feedback. Sometimes even the necessary performance indicators of the required chips, demand expectations and final product applications are like squeezing out toothpaste. They need to be asked by the original manufacturer to provide them, and are not systematic. This may be the internal regulations of these customers, or it may be due to the lack of experience of the customer's engineering design personnel.

A power device product that the author is responsible for has passed a customer's bench test and is about to finalize the design and enter the B-sample stage for reliability testing. However, the customer's mechanical engineer suddenly requested to increase the device pin length due to system structure design reasons. The customer's designers believed that this was a minor change and would not affect subsequent testing and production, so they did not make this request at the initial stage of the project. However, the length of the new pins just exceeded the range allowed by the clamps on the production line. According to the factory's evaluation, it could not be produced on the same line as the existing products, and a new production line needed to be invested. As a last resort, on the premise of meeting the customer's structural requirements as much as possible without investing in a new production line, the original packaging engineer modified the packaging design, making the packaging of this device from a standard product to a customized packaging. Not only did the project R&D investment increase, Mass production time has been delayed, and packaging costs have also increased. Fortunately, this customer learned his lesson and greatly improved his cooperation with the original manufacturer in subsequent projects, becoming a good customer.

Another European customer was not so lucky. This customer requires a customized automotive-grade IGBT. However, due to the requirements of the terminal car manufacturer or the company's own organizational structure and personnel changes, the customer will change the specifications or performance requirements of this IGBT every once in a while. From high performance and high price at the beginning, to cost-effectiveness requirements in the mid-term, and finally to price-based requirements, the supplier was exhausted, causing this customer to fall all the way from the ranking of important customers. In the end, it was lost to everyone and could no longer be obtained. The same level of technical and supply support as before.

Some customers do not have a clear project time point in the early communication, but when they need samples later, they require the original chip manufacturer to provide them next week. When the sample is provided to the customer at an expedited rate, it often takes several urgings before a test report with scant content is provided months later, or even no news at all. Such customers also have difficulty getting care from the product line when they are short of cores.

Although the above-mentioned bad customers are lacking in technology and business communication, at least they are still within the normal range in terms of human sophistication. However, there is another type of customer. After the product line personnel visit, such customers will be placed on the no-contact list. Unless the management fights against all objections, it will no longer be possible to obtain any support from the product line, which can be called "bad". There is a famous company in Shenzhen even like this. The company wanted to enter a new application area a few years ago, so it invited chip manufacturers to introduce products. In order to show their importance to this customer, the original manufacturer and agent formed a team of nearly ten people from their respective product lines and sales departments to visit, including many directors-level employees. After arriving at the door, I learned that the customer's relevant department had only arranged for a young engineer to attend, and did not reserve a conference room. Instead, the meeting place was arranged in the smoking room in the public area of ​​​​their floor. The company's confidentiality regulations do not allow suppliers to enter the office area. . So, everyone packed into a small smoking room, and started a product introduction meeting with only two seats and uninvolved people puffing away. At the end of the meeting, the client's only participant stated that he had no decision-making power, so he could not give any feedback on the spot. After the meeting, colleagues described this as the most brutal customer visit in their careers. It is conceivable that even if other departments of this large company can continue to cooperate with the original factory, at least this department has entered the blacklist of the product line.

There are also a few customers who have cut themselves off by more shameful means. The author's previous department was also responsible for marketing and sales in a South Asian country. Previously, international financial media were optimistic about the country and believed that the economy was about to take off. Important companies in the country also announced huge investments and expanded production. In order to explore this emerging market, some of my colleagues often visited customers in the country during that time, organized various product introduction meetings and product trainings, and brought back a large number of customer demand expectations and some intended orders. Considering the potential and importance of the country's market, the chip quotations provided by the original manufacturers are very attractive, and in order to meet customer demand, they have applied to the company's senior management for a production capacity expansion plan. Unexpectedly, the expected demand provided by customers was only to obtain the lowest price for chips. Many intended orders were later canceled by customers, and the actual chip purchase volume was less than a fraction of it. Since then, similar customers in the country have complained about a large number of chip demands or insufficient supply, and the original manufacturers believe that their credibility is extremely low.

All in all, as long as you treat people with sincerity when communicating with semiconductor companies, maintain smooth communication and a two-way flow of information, the original product line will be willing to carry out in-depth cooperation with such customers. If you can also provide some help from the perspective of product line personnel, such as market prospects from the customer's perspective, then even if it is not an important customer, it is still better than an important customer. This is just the icing on the cake in normal times, but in times of crisis when chips are in short supply, it may be a timely help.

Summary: This article starts from the perspective of the product line of the original chip manufacturer and discusses how customers can establish a good cooperative relationship with the original chip manufacturer in order to obtain more support during the industry turmoil.