The short supply of automobile-use Ethernet chips from Taiwan-based Realtek Semiconductor is unlikely to result in significant impacts on the global automotive supply chains, according to industry observers.
The observers made the remarks amid rising market speculations indicating that Realtek cannot fulfill its orders for automotive chips, affecting the supply chains of some of the world's major automakers.
A lack of sufficient capacity support from foundry houses has contributed to shipment delays at Realtek recently, but the impact of the shortage of automotive chips from Realtek on the global automotive supply chain should be relatively limited, said the observers.
Automotive chips currently account for only about 2% of Realtek's total revenues, while there are many chip suppliers rolling out a wide variety of chips for diverse car models, the sources explained.
According to Digitimes Research, suppliers of car-use Ethernet chips include Broadcom, NXP, Infineon, Texas Instruments, Intel, Renesas, Marvell, Toshiba, and Microchip, offering chip parts to automakers such as BMW, Audi, Tesla, Hyundai Motor and Toyota.
Furthermore, with traditional cars still accounting for over 80% of the global auto market, current car models coming out with a large or high proportion of Ethernet chips are still limited, the source added.
