A power cut affected several towns in northern Taiwan, in the Linkou, Taishan and Xinzhuang regions, on August 13th. Apparently , a violent lightning strike caused a drop in voltage, without the emergency power systems being able to take over completely. What might seem anecdotal given the often violent climatic events on the island, has nevertheless had consequences for several factories in the region. Micron and Nanya both experienced interruptions to their manufacturing processes.
A small interruption, big consequences?
The Nanya plant suffered a power cut for around 20 minutes, but the emergency power system was able to take over. It is not yet known whether the engraving systems suffered any significant damage. On their side, Nanya has said that it can confirm damage to its production lines, but has not yet defined the extent of the damage. Industry experts believe that the impact of this power cut is limited and that each production line still has stocks, so supplies should be sustainable.
In Micron’s case, the company had already recently experienced production problems, and the repercussions, particularly on GDDR6X, are well known. While the short duration of this outage may suggest that this incident is not at all significant, it should be remembered that in 2020, Micron suffered a one-hour power cut and price increases were quickly announced to compensate for the loss of production. Rumours suggest that Micron’s wet and dry etching processes may have been affected by the voltage drop. In this case, unlike Nanya, the back-up power system did not work, resulting in a sudden shutdown of the production line.
Micron and Nanya have extremely critical positions in memory manufacturing, and the slightest jolt from one of these companies has immediate repercussions on the chip market.