"According to industry sources, despite the recent slowdown in demand for consumer electronic equipment in the terminal market, IC design companies still intend to continue to increase inventory levels of specific chips. For second-tier design houses, the slowdown in terminal demand may help their product portfolio tilt toward new products.

The “Electronic Times” quoted the source as saying that the inventory levels of network chips, power ICs and other specific applications are still low. Due to the strong momentum of customers’ shipments and the lack of a balance between supply and demand, the number of design houses has been increased. Inventory of these chips to meet downstream demand.

TSMC confirmed that most of its IC design customers tend to maintain current chip inventory levels to meet the strong demand for end applications. Although the end market demand may be reversed, the design houses are still continuing despite the continued tightness of fab capacity Seek as much OEM capacity support as possible.

In addition, even if end-user demand slows down, it is not entirely bad for IC design houses. The source believes that because customers have been continuously requesting shipments in the past year, it will not only give them inventory management and new business development. The tremendous pressure brought about also affected the launch of their new products.

The second-tier design houses usually lag behind the first-tier design houses in terms of competing for foundry capacity, and their new product capacity is often squeezed by urgent orders from customers at higher prices, which further delays the launch of new products. Therefore, once the end demand Relax, these design houses can adjust their product portfolio to ensure healthy long-term business development.

In fact, IC design houses may adjust their inventory strategy in 2022. As long as the inventory rebounds to a normal level or the overbooking ratio is too high, it may slow down its hoarding momentum."