By Barbara Jorgensen, EETimes (January 30, 2020)
Crucial to the electronics industry in this crisis is the trifecta of a US/China trade war, Brexit in Europe and supply-chain uncertainties triggered by the coronavirus.
Global technology companies have made employees their priority as the deadly coronavirus spreads across the Chinese mainland and beyond. Late Thursday afternoon, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the virus a global public health emergency.
Apple has restricted employee travel and closed several stores. Avnet has asked employees to work from home. Peugeot and Citroen are repatriating non-Chinese staff to France.
As of Friday, China had confirmed more than 10,000 cases of the illness, surpassing the total from the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic. The new virus has killed 171 people in China. Confirmed cases of infection are increasingly daily, adding fuel to the public’s fear.
The epicenter of the outbreak is Wuhan, one of China’s largest manufacturing centers. Foxconn and Pegatron have operations there, as do memory manufacturers such as XMC (nor flash) and Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. (non-volatile memory).