Nexperia interim CEO Stefan Tilger stated at the Electronica trade fair in Munich that the company is facing severe supply shortages. Suppliers are shifting production capacity toward the rapidly growing AI data center market, which reduces the output of mature-node chips essential for automotive and industrial equipment.
Tilger noted that competitors are cutting back on general-purpose semiconductors, which are core products for Nexperia. This shift creates bottlenecks in the automotive supply chain. The executive emphasized that basic components like diodes and transistors, produced using mature processes, have suffered from a long-term lack of investment.
STMicroelectronics CEO Jean-Marc Chery warned that wafer foundries and packaging firms are moving resources away from the automotive and industrial sectors. This transition is causing supply constraints across the industry as manufacturers prioritize higher-margin chips for AI and data centers.
Unlike many competitors, STMicroelectronics maintains its own production facilities, which allows the company to mitigate some supply risks through internal manufacturing and capital expenditure. Nexperia, however, focuses on low-cost, high-volume products and has a more limited product range, making it more sensitive to these industry-wide capacity adjustments.
