Orders are overflowing, this is how semiconductor manufacturing spends the Spring Festival

Semiconductor manufacturing continues to operate at full capacity, and the Spring Festival is no exception. Especially under the influence of the epidemic, many local governments and a large number of companies have introduced various Spring Festival job retention rewards to ensure that employees are retained and production is stable during the Spring Festival (refer to the series of [Spring Festival Job Rewards] articles released by Jiwei.com).

Due to the particularity of semiconductor wafer factories, the machines will not stop without special circumstances. Therefore, they basically operate normally during holidays. An employee of a domestic wafer factory said that due to the recent continuous full orders, the production during the Spring Festival had been arranged several months ago. Because everyone is encouraged to celebrate the Chinese New Year in place during the epidemic, many front-line employees cannot return to their hometowns and are on standby to support production at any time. "Although the design company customers are on holiday, it does not mean that the fab can take a breather. The orders have been planned long ago and will not affect mass production." He said.

Xiao A, an employee of another wafer factory, did not go home for the Chinese New Year for the first time. "On the one hand, it is to reduce the flow of personnel and reduce the risk of employees being infected by the epidemic. On the other hand, there are too many orders. The production line has always been in two shifts, and it did not stop on New Year's Eve. We have been racing against time to increase efficiency."

The founder of a wafer testing company that is about to go public said that except for a few who asked for leave, all employees did not take a holiday during the Spring Festival, and everyone was in a relatively optimistic mood. The order volume is very large, and compared with the same period last year, it is so much that it is "crazy". Once the production plan is arranged, the production line can only work at full capacity, but even so, it is still in short supply! The person in charge expects that the production capacity situation will not ease until the second half of the year.

According to Haicang Today, there are more than 750 production line workers and managers in the two factories of Xiamen Silan Microelectronics, Silan Mingjia and Jike. This year, the two companies of Xiamen Silan did not stop production, and more than 90% of the production line workers stayed in Xiamen for the New Year. Silan Mingjia compound and 12-inch specialty process chip production lines adopt a two-shift production mode, and the production lines did not stop on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Due to the full orders, in order to meet market demand, the first 12-inch production line of Silan Microelectronics Haicang project continued to expand production on the basis of the first phase of production capacity. It is expected that the second 12-inch chip production line will most likely start construction earlier than originally planned. In order to complete the expansion of the production line as soon as possible, the construction of the factory building and the installation of equipment are being accelerated; in addition, there are about 170 employees staying in Xiamen at Tongfu Microelectronics Haicang Factory, which exceeds 70% of the total number of employees. The three production workshops basically guarantee 100% of the production capacity. During the Spring Festival, everyone worked overtime to seize every minute and every second to grab efficiency.

The head of a foreign-funded packaging and testing equipment company told Jiwei.com that equipment orders have now been scheduled until June, because there were too many unfulfilled orders before, and they are working at full capacity to make up for them during the Spring Festival. As for whether the hot orders this year are inflated, he analyzed that there are several factors that have led to a sharp increase in orders, including domestic substitution, the impact of the global epidemic, capital-driven performance, and stocking, which have pushed orders to a historical high.

Interestingly, a packaging and testing factory in the west has orders for chips that have "pile up until May", but since most of the employees are local and Sichuan people pay special attention to the Spring Festival, they have to take three days off even if they can't complete the orders. "It's the employees from other places who can't go back and stay here for the Spring Festival." He smiled helplessly, "There's no other way. Even if we triple the overtime pay and add 500 yuan, half of the employees still have to go home to visit relatives."

A year ago, due to the outbreak of the epidemic, a large number of employees were quarantined at home, which caused the semiconductor industry chain to lose a lot of production capacity. This year, with the collective efforts of the entire industry, I believe that the supply disruption will not happen again. For these "left behind" employees, this Spring Festival may miss a period of time to reunite with their families, but they have more responsibilities and obligations.