Chips’ Supply-Demand ‘Imbalance’ to Persist Through 2022: Himax

Himax Technologies, supplier of display driver chips and other semiconductor products to panel makers, has “rather limited” visibility into certain areas of consumer electronics, “with global consumption potentially impacted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, port congestion, worldwide inflationary pressure and worries over geographical conflict,” said CEO Jordan Wu on a Q4 earnings call Thursday. In foundry capacity, “we expect the supply-demand imbalance to continue throughout 2022, especially on the mature nodes that we are primarily anchored to,” he said. Himax has continued "to pursue new partnerships and agreements to increase our available capacity and achieve our 2022 business goals,” he said. It signed contracts “with the vast majority of panel makers and, in some instances, select leading end customers, where they prepay or make a deposit to secure their long-term chip supply, which in turn also improves our business visibility,” he said. “Foreseeing the continuation of the prevailing foundry shortage and the demand for advanced displays to remain strong, we continue to move toward higher end markets.”