8 April 2011

No immediate disruption to GaAs supply chain from Japan quake

According to the Strategy Analytics GaAs and Compound Semiconductor Technologies (GaAs) service report ‘Japanese Quake Impact on the GaAs Industry’ (which provides a preliminary assessment of the impact of the 11 March earthquake and tsunami, as well as subsequent power outages, on the GaAs industry in Japan and worldwide), there is no danger of immediate disruption to the supply of gallium and arsenide raw materials. The supply of SI (semi-insulating) bulk substrates will also be sustained. GaAs device manufacturing facilities were also largely unaffected.

“The primary factors that will impact GaAs device supply out of Japan relate to more generic issues which have an impact on the whole electronics industry,” comments Eric Higham, director, GaAs Service. “These include disruption to utilities, logistics and concern for the availability of materials used in chip packaging and assembly,” he adds.

“There is the possibility, however, that any significant ramp in demand for GaAs epitaxial substrates over the next 3–6 weeks may lead to end-users being placed on allocation,” observes Asif Anwar, director at Strategy Analytics. “Strategy Analytics analysis shows that the Japanese epitaxial substrate suppliers were running at full production rates, with little to no excess inventory in the supply chain.”

In the GaAs RF/microelectronics industry, Japan accounts for 50% of bulk substrate supply, 18–20% of global SI GaAs epitaxial substrate production, and up to a fifth of the global GaAs device market. Japanese firms involved in the GaAs industry include Hitachi Cable, Renesas and Sumitomo Chemical.

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Sony Shiroishi laser fab partially resumes operation

Tags: GaAs GaAs substrates Gallium raw material

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