TSMC now giving highest priority to automotive chips

There's a global chip shortage and a lot of industries are suffering from a lack of chips. One industry that's been in the news a lot lately is the car industry. Factories around the world are hit by shutdowns due to an insufficient supply of critical chips. The car industry is an important economic sector for a lot of countries and this resulted in political pressure on foundries to give automotive clients priority.

DigiTimes writes TSMC is now accommodating car makers by giving automotive chip orders SHR (super hot run) status. Basically, automotive clients will be given top priority at the expense of some other clients.

Automakers are desperate for support from foundry partners to ease chip shortages disrupting their production, and they are willing to pay extra in return for foundries giving top priority to their orders. TSMC has agreed to give automotive chip orders SHR (super hot run) status. But more support from Taiwanese foundries may not be enough to ease their trouble, which has now been compounded by the frigid weather in the US state of Texas that has halted production at wafer fabs there. Taiwan's top-3 foundry houses are expected to see their overall sales hit a record level in 2021, according to Digitimes Research.

On a related note, the winter storms in the US are also causing chip production disruptions, thereby exacerbating the chip woes even more. Several chip production plants near Austin, Texas have been ordered to shut down temporarily to conserve electricity. Affected plants include facilities from Samsung, NXP, and Infineon. The latter two are key suppliers of automotive chips. The harsh winter conditions in Texas are expected to have a big impact on high-end NOR flash production as well as chips that require 200mm wafer production.