The lead time for wire bonding machines, mainly supplied by Kulicke & Soffa of Singapore said to be 10 to 12 months.
For wafer dicing machines, led by Japan’s Disco, delivery times are up tob5 to 8 months.
IC testing machines made by Advantest of Japan and Teradyne of the U.S., among others, have sern lead times grow “significantly@.
For laser drilling machines, Mitsubishi Electric has warned clients that the lead time for some tools is now more than 12 months for orders placed from now on.
The lead time for high-end chip substrates has lengthened to 52 weeks.
“People are booking 50 or even 100 of Mitsubishi’s laser processing machines at a time,” said an industry source, “we have been told that its capacity is fully booked because demand is so strong, and if we want to order new machines now, we will have to wait until next year for them to be available.
Even TSMC is concerned. “Ongoing trade tensions or protectionist measures could result in increased prices for, or even unavailability of, key equipment,” said the company in its annual report, pointing to factors such as delays or denials of export licenses, additional export control measures, and other tariff or non-tariff barriers.
For chip shortages, the Nikkei published this infographic showing current lead times:
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