According to Taiwan's Economic Daily News reported that the semiconductor inventory adjustment appeared good signs, the earliest to bear the pressure of falling prices of microcontrollers (MCU) market, leading the price cuts in the land enterprises recently stopped one after another to kill the price of inventory clearance strategy, and some items even began to rise in price. MCU applications are widely used, covering consumer electronics, automotive, industrial control, and other key areas, and now the offer is picking up, "the first to fall (price) of the first fall," revealing that the end of the demand for warmth! The semiconductor market is not far from the road to spring.

Global MCU indicator factory, including Japanese Renesas, Dutch NXP, U.S. Microchip, etc., have an important position in the global semiconductor industry; Taiwan factory to Holtek (6202), NUVOTON, ELAN, SONIX, etc. as representatives. With the land enterprises to kill the price of bleeding competition eases, the relevant manufacturers will also benefit.

Industry sources pointed out that the MCU is very wide range of uses, its dynamics is the market used to determine the wind ball of the semiconductor boom, microchip released financial results and outlook, and was compared to the "canary in the mine", highlighting the MCU and the development of market conditions is very close, and now the offer appeared to stop the decline and rebound signals, semiconductor inventory adjustments for many seasons of the good omen.

Industry analysts analyze that the new crown epidemic outbreak in 2020 and 2021, the supply chain is worried about breaking the chain, as long as there are goods are the first to grab and say, so that the IC design industry ushered in a full hand of orders, as well as a rare tide of price increases, but such a glorious scene in 2022 began to change color, in a variety of end-use applications show weakness, MCU bore the brunt of the manufacturers inventory rising, and even the industry's top performer frankly! Inventory up to dozens of months of record high water level.

In order to solve the huge inventory pressure, MCU industry in the fourth quarter of last year to the first half of this year, faced with the history of the most bleak dark period, the mainland MCU industry at all costs to cut prices to clear inventories, and even the well-known integration of components factory (IDM) has joined the battlefield to kill prices. Fortunately, the recent market price killing inventory gradually come to an end, the mainland MCU factory unbearable losses, no longer below cost sales, and even a small increase in prices, back to a more reasonable range.

Unnamed Taiwan MCU factory revealed that with the land enterprises to kill the attitude of moderate, cross-strait product price difference has been gradually narrowed, and began to have a small amount of urgent orders to come in, conducive to a more rapid de-inventorying, "the dawn should not be far away.

Taiwan's MCU factory mentioned that customer orders are gradually flowing back, will first pull goods from the channel business, digesting the downstream inventory, so it may not be immediately reflected in the IC design industry this quarter's performance figures, but is conducive to next year's operating outlook.

Semiconductor industry gradually out of the inventory adjustment haze, so that the IC design industry to see the gross margin stabilized signals, especially the previous price kill kill red-eye microcontroller (MCU) factory in the land enterprises to suspend the price cut, the recovery is expected to be greater; also revealed that with the United Microelectronics, the world, such as wafer foundries to lower the offer, the IC design factory is a great blessing.

The IC design industry is not shy to say that by the impact of the environment, the gross margin performance will be low this year, but there is a chance that from the first quarter of next year will start to pick up.

There are also IC design industry, according to the current product offer, gross margin is not good, but at least there are shipments of performance in. Just after the sale of goods to customers, and then to invest in the establishment of inventory, and wait four to five months after the output, and it is still difficult to predict the future market conditions, must still be cautious. Therefore, we will still choose the order of shipment and price, and hope to at least maintain a certain gross margin.

Inflation, inventory adjustments, the main IC design houses this year, gross margins almost all face downward pressure. MediaTek's gross margin for the first half of this year was 47.76%, not as good as last year's 49.36%. Wing last year's gross margin of 46.33%, the first half of this year fell to 41.82%. Reynolds last year's gross margin of 48.87%, the first half of this year fell to 42.32%.

In addition, Nuvoton last year's gross margin of 41.78%, the first half of this year, the gross margin fell slightly to 40.39%. Holtek's gross profit margin was 51.3% last year and 46.98% in the first half of this year. Song Han last year's gross margin of 46.61%, the first half of this year fell to 40.16%.

The industry revealed that the previous weak order momentum, inventory accumulation peak, many IC design houses, the average number of days to sell longer, and even more than a year, now the good news is that with the gradual upturn in shipment momentum, the average number of days to sell is expected to continue to decline.

Part of the MCU industry said that the overall end demand has not yet fully improved, inventory de-stocking is still to be more efforts, some agents inventory level has been low, will begin to pull some goods. Another Taiwan factory mentioned that the inventory has been gradually demineralized, only the average unit price (ASP) once the decline is more difficult to rise back.