Taiwanese network equipment makers, including Zhonglei Electronics, Zhiyi Technology, Textron Technology and Zhibang Technology, continue to face chip shortages, with lead times for core ICs extending to more than 50 weeks, industry sources said.

According to a recent report by Susquehana Financial Group, Broadcom has cut lead times for unspecified peripheral chips used in networking equipment to 29 weeks, digitimes reported. But Broadcom said at an investor conference in December that lead times for its core networking chips had been extended to 52 weeks and could continue into fiscal 2022 or even 2023 because of the backlog of orders from customers despite its increased capacity continues to increase.

As peers such as Broadcom continue to improve chip supply, such as migrating from 28nm to 16nm process production to achieve faster delivery, network equipment suppliers hope that the tension in network chips will gradually ease in 2022, and it is expected that there will be significant changes in the second half of this year. improve.

Still, Textron said some new variables, including the blockade of shipments at Samsung's Xi'an plant in China, could exacerbate chip shortages and affect shipments of networking equipment.

Zhibang Technology pointed out that the long delivery cycle of core chips in the first half of 2022 will still affect its sales. From the third quarter of this year, it remains to be seen whether the supply shortage of such chips can improve as expected.

In response to the continued shortage of chips, chip manufacturers including Realtek will increase their core network chip quotations in the first quarter of 2022, but this will not increase the cost burden of network equipment and module suppliers, as chip suppliers usually directly communicate with each other. End customers negotiate price increases.