Recently, the global epidemic has once again escalated. After the epidemic in India got out of control, the community epidemic in Taiwan reached a new high, and Vietnam and Nepal fell one after another.Malaysia was also closed yesterday.

I. the number of confirmed cases and deaths continues to rise.

According to the latest data, the number of new confirmed cases in Malaysia reached 4765 on the 12th, with a total of 453222 confirmed cases and 39 new deaths.

Recently, the number of new confirmed cases in Malaysia has remained at a high level. Since the number of new confirmed cases in Malaysia exceeded 4000 on May 7, the basic number of infections (R0) of COVID-19 has exceeded 1.1 for five consecutive days.

Due to the continuous severity of COVID-19 's epidemic situation and the high number of confirmed cases every day, Malaysian Prime Minister Muhitin announced in a message on May 10th.The "Action Control order" was restarted nationwide from May 12 to June 7 to curb the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic.

Malaysia has previously succeeded in levelling the first wave and the second wave of the epidemic.However, the third wave of the epidemic is obviously more serious. At present, the number of confirmed cases and deaths in a single day continues to rise.Not only are the variants invading the community, 50% of those diagnosed with infection are infected in the community, and the source of the infection is unknown; the mortality rate this week has also increased by 43.2% compared with last week. At present, more and more young people are infected with coronary disease and are entering intensive care units (ICU). Vaccination is slow, and people are waiting in long queues outside vaccination centers for temporary replacements.

It is understood that the continuous aggravation of this epidemic is related to, on the one hand, the tight and loose control measures taken by the government out of economic considerations, and the failure of national epidemic prevention measures to maintain a game of chess; on the other hand, it is also related to a small number of citizens who do not actively cooperate with government control, continuous imported cases, limited health and epidemic prevention conditions and facilities, and so on.

In addition to foreign countries, the Malaysian health director announced on the 10th that the National Security Council meeting decided to list Singapore as one of the areas where "mutated strains" appeared in the community. From May 13, all people entering Malaysia from Singapore must undergo a mandatory 14-day quarantine at the quarantine centre; from May 13, the Singapore-Malaysia Mutual Green Channel will be suspended.

The Chinese Embassy in Malaysia also issued a reminder that foreigners who violate the Action Control order will be arrested and charged in court, asking compatriots to put an end to luck and earnestly abide by the arrangements of the Action Control order.

Second, the semiconductor "dilemma" aggravates.

Since 2021, the problem of "lack of core" in the semiconductor industry has become increasingly fierce and has become the focus of global attention.The main reason for the formation is that the economic impact of the global epidemic in 2020 has caused major car companies to put forward production reduction plans for contract factories, which has been digested by the rapid rise of consumer electronics. However, with the control of the epidemic, the sales of most car companies have rebounded rapidly, which is in great contrast with the supply volume, and the global production capacity is rapidly tight, and the supply can not meet the huge demand.Therefore, rising prices and out of stock have become a common phenomenon in the industry.

At present, the problem of "lack of core" has not been solved, and the closure of Malaysia has further aggravated the concerns of the industry.

As we all know, Malaysia is the center of global semiconductor production.According to United Nations, Malaysia's share of IC exports has been among the highest in the world since 2002. With the development in recent years, Malaysia's share of integrated circuit exports in 2018 has surpassed that of Japan and is equal to that of the United States.

At present, Malaysia has more than 50 semiconductor companies, including AMD, NXP, ASE, Infineon, St Semiconductor, Intel Corp, Renesas, Texas Instruments Inc and SunMoon. Most of these companies have closed testing and wafer manufacturing production lines in Malaysia.

At the same time, Malaysia is still Japan, and Taiwan enterprises are important places for the manufacture of resistance products, among which Taiwan resistance manufacturers account for a large proportion. Huaxin Technology, Wang Li (Qilixin) has a large part of its resistance production capacity in Malaysia; Japan's Murata (inductance, MLCC), Nichicon and Nippon Chemicon (aluminum electrolytic capacitor) and Panasonic (solid-state capacitor) all have production capacity in Malaysia. In addition, Global Crystal, a major global fab manufacturer, also has a 6-inch fab in Malaysia.

In addition, Malaysian local semiconductors and semiconductor-related companies, especially publicly listed companies, are mostly involved in the middle and lower end of the semiconductor industry chain, providing services to foreign semiconductor manufacturers, brand owners, IC developers and manufacturers.

以Penang Island as an exampleIt has an ecosystem of more than 3000 diverse local suppliers covering automation, software development, assembly, electronics, precision engineering and metal processing. International companies including Intel Corp, Broadcom Ltd, Micron, Motorola, Dell and iPhone supplier Jepp have all built manufacturing plants on the island.

Malaysia accounts for 8 per cent of the global back-end semiconductor manufacturing market, of which Penang contributes 80 per cent and occupies a dominant position in global microelectronics assembly and closed testing.

However, much of the work in the region depends on skilled Indian IT professionals, with about 3000 working in the software and IT industries in Penang.A few days ago, Malaysia announced a ban on Indian citizens, which has had an impact on production capacity. Superimposed by this decision, the impact on the global semiconductor supply chain will be further expanded.

Global chip foundry has been running at full capacity since 2021. Several leading global semiconductor companies have announced a number of production expansion plans one after another. For example, Intel Corp planned to build a new wafer factory with US $20 billion; Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd invested US $100 billion to strengthen semiconductor manufacturing in three years; and SK Hynix, the second largest chip factory in South Korea, was approved to expand production by US $100 billion, and so on. None of this, however, will solve short-term problems.

After the closure of Malaysia in March last year, not only some semiconductor companies went into a state of shutdown, but also the export of product shipments was hindered.In view of the fact that the semiconductor industry is already extremely fragile, the industry may set off a new round of price increases and shortage.