A few days ago, the shortage of automotive chips once again attracted attention.

On Monday, the US carmaker Ford said it would stop production at its plant in the German city of Sal Louis from now until Feb. 19 because of chip shortages and weak demand.

It is reported that the factory has about 5000 workers and is responsible for producing Ford's best-selling focus in Europe.

Last week, also because of chip shortages, Ford announced the temporary closure of its SUV plant in Kentucky. In addition, due to disruptions in the supply of key parts, Ford's Maraimalai Nagar plant near Chennai, India, also announced that it would extend the Ponger holiday for workers by a week.

Not only Ford, but also according to foreign media reports, Audi CEO Koos Duzman said in an interview recently that more than 10, 000 employees have been on vacation due to a shortage of car chips.

The shortage of automotive chips has been going on for some time. As early as last December, SAIC-Volkswagen announced that it had stopped production on December 4, and FAW-Volkswagen also stopped production in early December. It also said that the main reason for the suspension of production of the two joint ventures was the insufficient supply of automotive chips needed to build cars.

Although FAW-Volkswagen responded that the production of new cars has indeed been affected to a certain extent, the enterprise has not stopped production as rumored by the outside world, and has already made relevant preparations.

But it can be seen that the domino effect caused by the shortage of chip supply is becoming more and more intense in the semiconductor industry chain.

IHS Markit predicts that semiconductor shortages could last throughout the first half of the year. Relevant sources said: "at present, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd and Samsung have insufficient input and output on such chips, so it will take some time for production capacity to go online, and it is expected to have a direct impact on around June." "