According to a recent report by the Korean State-backed publication, The Elec, an Austin, Texas-based chipset manufacturer has halted its productions indefinitely. Sources close to the matter have revealed that the main reason behind the halted production is power outages induced by the recent cold spell in North America.
The chipmaker is responsible for providing wafers to Samsung for its flagship smartphones set to be sold in the US. Moreover, the same setup is responsible for the production of OLED ICs used in the latest iPhones.
The plant has a production capacity of 20,000 wafers per month. In most cases, to prevent issues due to short-term suspension, companies stock up on a month and a half of inventory for components. However, production of the Austin chip maker was halted around two weeks ago and it is believed that it will take at least two more months to get things going again. Hence, smartphone production will be affected eventually.
The company has until mid-April to have the production reach normal levels before it starts to affect its smartphone production. Sources reveal that Samsung is expected to ship around 30 million units of the Galaxy S21 series. However, due to the sudden halt of chipset productions, the company might only be able to ship 20 million units.
