According to industry sources, as customers are increasingly reluctant to accept further price increases, IC design companies in Taiwan, especially companies engaged in consumer IC design, are facing pressure to pass on costs.

The digitimes report pointed out that the source said that IC design companies have increased their quotations for the third and fourth quarters of 2021 to reflect the increase in foundry and back-end costs, but due to the slowdown in terminal demand, it is difficult to increase the first quarter of 2022 Offer.

"Terminal demand has exploded between the second half of 2020 and the first half of 2021. IC design companies offer higher prices to compete for more foundry capacity, while chip distributors raise prices to accumulate more inventory." The source said.

It is understood that the current automotive chips and power management ICs continue to face a tight supply situation, which has caused IDM and other related suppliers such as Infineon, Renesas, Texas Instruments and STMicroelectronics to increase the prices of the above two chips to make up for it. Increase in production and raw material costs.

Sources pointed out that some consumer IC prices are beginning to face downward pressure. Although TSMC will raise its foundry quotations by 10-20% next year and other peers will follow suit, chip suppliers will find that they will increase their quotations in the first quarter of 2022. The difficulty is getting bigger and bigger.