Typhoon Chanthu Disrupts Supply Chain in East Asia

Super Typhoon “Chanthu”, an enormous category 5 disaster, is damaging portions of the Philippines, Taiwan, China, South Korea, and Japan. Not only does this typhoon have massive impacts on the human lives in the area, but also disrupts the already unstable state of semiconductor supply chain across the world. The 2020 pandemic caused supply chain interruptions globally, but the typhoon further exacerbated this problem.

Further delays in Taiwan, the largest global semiconductor supplier

Taiwan, one of the leading nations for semiconductor production, has already been struggling with timely delivery dates for components since the outbreak of COVID-19 – now with the typhoon season in the Western Pacific region, chip production and delivery has nearly slowed to a halt. The largest factory for chips is TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.), which produces high-performance computing chips for companies like Apple or Google to be used in smartphones or A.I. applications.

Chinese shipping ports closed, adding to delays

Typhoon Chanthu forced China – which has been dealing with cargo congestion for the past year – to close two of their busiest shipping ports, Ningbo-Zhoushan Port and Shanghai Port. As the typhoon subsided last week, both ports reopened, but the damage had been done. Already delayed shipments were further postponed.

How will this affect your supply chain? SiliconExpert could help

When a large-scale natural disaster, such as Typhoon Chanthu, causes delays in your supply chain, we can help. SiliconExpert’s intelligence systems help you proactively identify components at risk of delays and helps you find alternatives from an available inventory of authorized distributors. We also help with geo-risk by identifying single-source parts in your bill of materials.

To learn more, check out our  Supply Chain Risk Management tool.

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