Ukraine war leads to next bottleneck

Munich First the pandemic, then the storms, now the war in Ukraine: One crisis after the other is showing the chip industry how vulnerable its global supply chains are.

“In some cases there are strong dependencies on individual materials and countries,” warned Infineon CEO Reinhard Ploss in an interview with the Handelsblatt. In principle, his company makes sure that raw materials and preliminary products are obtained from several independent sources. However, the dependencies cannot be completely resolved.

For decades that wasn’t a bad thing: the supply of the right raw materials at the right time seemed to have become a matter of course. Now, however, the question of raw materials is back on the agenda of corporate executives with renewed force. Huge demand meets growing shortages. And almost every day a new substance is noticed whose replenishment seems to be in acute danger for the industry.

The gas neon, which is important for the production of semiconductors, is currently threatening to become scarce due to the war in Ukraine.