The two most pressing problems for the semiconductor industry in the wake of the Japan disasters, are the state of Toshiba’s NAND flash fabs, which supply over 40% of world supply, and the state of Japan’s makers of raw silicon wafer manufacturers which supply over 60% of the world requirement.
Toshiba’s NAND fabs are at Yokkaichi, South of Tokyo and 1,000 km from where the earthquake was at its worst and where the tsunami came ashore. Nonetheless they were subject to a ‘brief shutdown’.
Before Christmas. A few milliseconds of power outage resulted in the 20% loss of wafers over the subsequent two months. So it’s unclear what the effects of a ‘brief shutdown’ will be.
Although Toshiba did shut down a semiconductor plant, it was one for CMOS image sensors and logic ICs which doesn’t impact NAND supply.
60% of the word’s raw silicon wafers are made in Japan by Shin-Etsu and Sumco (formerly Sumitomo Chemical) both of which have suffered disruptions to production. Shin-Etsu is thought to have been worst affected as it has a factory in the hardest-hit region, and this factory has now stopped production.
Compounding all these problems are broken transportation links.