2021年经济学人 电脑芯片(2)（在线收听）

The pandemic thus arrived at the worst possible time. After an early crash, demand in several segments boomed, says Alan Priestley of Gartner, another consultancy. Locked-down consumers bought laptops and other gadgets. Cloud-computing operators, which are big consumers of high-end chips, scrambled to add servers to deal with the wave of home-workers. The car industry was particularly badly hit by a decision to cut orders early in the pandemic. Demand for cars has since recovered. But the complexities of the production process means it takes three to four months to turn a blank silicon wafer into a usable batch of chips. "I can cancel my orders in an afternoon," says Mr Penn. "If I want to start them up again, that takes months-and anyway, that capacity is now busy serving other customers."

这么说来，疫情发生的时间不能更糟了。另一家咨询公司高德纳的艾伦·普里斯特利表示，在经历了一开始的崩盘后，有几个领域需求激增。被疫情封锁在家的消费者纷纷购置笔记本电脑和其他电子小设备。作为高端芯片的消费大户，云计算运营商忙不迭地添置服务器以应对居家工作者激增。汽车行业在疫情初期决定削减芯片订单，这让它受到的冲击尤其严重。自那以后对汽车的需求已经逐渐恢复，但生产过程的复杂性意味着将一张空白硅片变为一组可用的芯片需要三到四个月的时间。“我取消订单只需一个下午，”佩恩说，“如果我想恢复它们，得花几个月—再说了，这些产能这会儿正忙着服务其他客户呢。”

The impact of the pandemic, in turn, has been made worse by industry-specific problems. In March a chip plant owned by Renesas, a Japanese firm, caught fire, piling pain on the car industry. Some chipmakers, meanwhile, face shortages of their own. Many cheap, workaday parts are made in older factories designed to process silicon wafers that are 200mm in diameter, or even smaller. (These days 300mm is the standard.) Efforts to boost capacity are stymied by the fact that few toolmakers still make the old-style machines, says Mr Priestley. The market for second- hand 200mm tools, meanwhile, has been stripped bare.

疫情的影响反过来又因为行业特有的一些问题而加剧。3月，日本公司瑞萨科技旗下的一家芯片厂失火，令汽车行业雪上加霜。与此同时，一些芯片制造商自身也面临短缺问题。许多廉价的普通零部件都产自老式工厂，当初建这些工厂就是为了加工直径200毫米或以下的硅片。（现在的标准是300毫米。）普里斯特利说，现在还在生产这类老式机器的工具制造商已经寥寥无几，所以芯片工厂也没办法提高产能。同时，二手市场上生产200毫米硅片的机器早已断货。

But the pork cycle is turning once again. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world's biggest contract chipmaker, plans to spend $3obn on new capacity this year alone. Samsung Electronics and Intel, two other giants, have pencilled in $28bn and $2obn respectively; second-tier chipmakers are ramping up spending too. That will bring relief to the wider economy, says Mr Priestley,but not immediately. On May 14th Jim Whitehurst, the boss of IBM, a computer-maker, said he thought the shortages might last for two years. And, says Mr Penn, when the drought eventually ends, chipmakers may find they face a familiar problem, but on a bigger scale: a capacity splurge in response to serious shortages today could well mean a sizeable glut tomorrow.

但猪周期正再度转向。全世界最大的芯片代工厂台积电仅今年就计划在新产能上投入300亿美元。另外两家巨头三星电子和英特尔分别计划投入280亿美元和200亿美元。二线芯片制造商也在加大投入力度。普里斯特利说，这将为更广泛的经济缓解压力，但不会立竿见影。5月14日，计算机制造商IBM的老板吉姆·怀特赫斯特说他认为短缺可能会持续两年。而且，佩恩示，等到短缺最终结束时，芯片制造商可能会发现自己面对一个熟悉的问题，只不过规模会更大：今天为严重短缺而大幅增加产能，很可能会导致明天严重过剩。