IHS iSuppli said that electronics companies, even those who were located at the epicenter of the quake, will have fully restored their operations and will resume full shipments by early September. Japan supplies about 45% of semiconductors for the global consumer electronics production. The earthquake hit Japan on March 11.
“In the history of the electronics supply chain, nothing has had such a broad impact as the Japan earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster,” said Dale Ford, senior vice president for semiconductor market intelligence at IHS, speaking at the IHS Design & Supply Chain Global Summit last week in San Jose, Calif. “The worldwide repercussions of the catastrophe illustrated the global and interconnected nature of the electronics industry, with the impact of the disaster reverberating through the materials, components and equipment segments of the supply chain. However, even the semiconductor companies suffering the most direct damage from the quake, full production will resume near the end of the third quarter.”
According to IHS iSuppli, 14 semiconductor suppliers and four silicon wafer makers in Japan were impacted by the quake. The company highlighted Fujitsu as a supplier with the most rapid and efficient recovery effort among all Japanese semiconductor suppliers. Fujitsu claimed that its production was fully restored by June 9. According to IHS iSuppli, Fujitsu leveraged different production facilities around the globe, a pre-existing plan how to restore electricity in the event of a disaster as well as pre-installed equipment that could seismically isolate damage to semiconductor wafers to mitigate the impact of the earthquake.
