14 DAY TRIAL // Yesterday was the day when one of the most serious natural disasters of our world's recent history struck Japan, and it seems that there will most likely be serious consequences on the electronics market.
No doubt end-users will have learned of the catastrophic event that slammed Japan just about a day ago.
What occurred was that an earthquake with a magnitude of 8.9 awoke about 373 kilometers (231 miles) northeast of Tokyo, the capital.
Said tremors caused huge tsunamis to sweep in and cause at least 1,000 deaths (may be an understatement), in addition to submerging much of the city itself, plus several other shorelines.
In fact, the shorelines themselves were said to have moved by as much as 2.7 meters, though an arguably even more important consequence, after the death toll of course, is that even the Earth's axis was shifted.
Needless to say, such an event will definitely have far-reaching consequences, and this includes the industry as a whole.
As iSuppli reports, semiconductor supply from Japan will most likely be disrupted, at least for the next two weeks, because of difficulties that suppliers, rather than production facilities, are sure to suffer.
Considering that, in 2010, Japan “accounted for 13.9 percent of all global electronic equipment factory revenue,” this isn't a small matter.
Among other things, the country supplies 10 percent of all DRAM shipped worldwide, based on wafer production, with companies based there ranking third in terms of chip production last year.
“The major impact on Japan’s semiconductor production is not likely to be direct damage to production facilities, but disruption to the supply chain,” says the analyst firm.
“Suppliers are likely to encounter difficulties in getting raw materials supplied and distributed and shipping products out.”
Overall, semiconductors may end up growing in price and being in lower availability for a while, although it is LCDs that might suffer the worst, even though only one LCD fab was near the zone of peripheral impact.