The price of discrete components began to fall in Q1 2011

After rising for more than a year, the price of discrete components used in almost all electronic products will begin to decline in the first quarter of 2011.

"The price of discrete components including bipolar power, power MOSFETs, small signal transistors, and rectifiers is expected to decline in the first quarter of 2011," said Rick Pierson, a senior analyst at iSuppli Corporation. The overall decline will be less than 1% and will not retreat from the gains that have accumulated since October 2009, but at least it will give some relief to buyers who have been facing a situation in short supply."

However, for the rest of 2010, the average selling price (ASP) of all discrete components is expected to continue to rise until supplies can counter the booming demand. In addition, even if the prices of discrete components begin to fall in the first quarter of next year, buyers may still find it difficult to obtain the goods. The delivery time of discrete components will continue to grow to levels well above normal, with some products even reaching more than 20 weeks.

Manufacturers and buyers of bipolar sensing bipolar power components may also experience some bipolar effects themselves. In 2009, the sales of these products fell sharply, but demand in 2010 soared, and became a hot commodity as the macroeconomic recovery.

The prices of these products have continued to rise in the past 12 months. This trend should be maintained for the rest of 2010 and then level off in the first half of 2011.

However, it is more worrying that the delivery period will continue to be extended in the third and fourth quarters of 2010, and some suppliers even have delivery periods of more than 26 weeks. Although iSuppli Corp. predicts that the delivery period in the first half of 2011 will be shortened, it will remain at around 18 weeks.

The tight supply of the MOSFET market in 2010 will not ease the pressure from the front and back of the supply chain, which will continue to strain the power MOSFET market, causing some suppliers to extend delivery time and ration certain products. These manufacturers include ON Semiconductor, Fairchild, Infineon and International Rectifier.

Demand for power MOSFETs began to increase in the first quarter of 2010, after which demand growth has been faster than supply. iSuppli Corporation predicts that this trend will be maintained throughout the year. At the same time, this situation has had a significant impact on prices, which have increased in the past 12 months.

Although prices are expected to stabilize at some point in the first half of 2011, given the high prices and strong demand, it can be expected that the power MOSFET market will continue to have bottlenecks, even though demand will drive manufacturers to increase production.

Small-signal transistor prices continue to rise during the year Like other discrete components, the prices of small-signal transistors and rectifiers will continue to rise during the year and then begin to decline in early 2011. Similarly, the delivery period of small-signal transistors is longer than normal, and will not improve in the near future. iSuppli Corp. predicts that the delivery of small-signal transistors in the first quarter of 2011 may even exceed 20 weeks.

The rectifier corrected the price drop in 2009 Due to the declining demand, the price of rectifiers fell badly in 2009, with a drop of about 20%. However, prices gradually recovered and also rose for 12 consecutive months. In the first half of 2010, the ASP of rectifiers continued to rise due to insufficient supply and continued strong demand.

iSuppli Corp. earlier forecasted that the price of rectifiers will keep rising in the first half of the year and may decline in the second half of the year. However, this situation did not appear, iSuppli now predicts that the price will continue to rise during the rest of 2010 until the first quarter of 2011. By then, prices will go down as supply and demand tend to stabilize.

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