US semiconductor company Microchip Technology has announced that an “unauthorized party has disrupted the use of certain servers and some of the company’s business operations.”

In a document filed Tuesday, the company said on Aug. 17 it “detected potentially suspicious activity related to its information technology systems.”

An investigation followed, and on August 19, that effort yielded evidence of the unauthorized access. The company took steps including isolating the relevant systems, shutting down other systems, and hiring outside cybersecurity consultants to understand the extent of the mess.

“As a result of the incident, certain of the company’s production facilities are operating at a lower level than normal and it is currently not possible for the company to fulfill orders,” the filing reads, adding that the company is working to resolve the issues as quickly as possible.

There’s no word on the cause of the incident, the extent of the disruption at the chipmaker, or whether ransomware was involved. The mention of isolating affected systems suggests the unauthorized party’s activities had the potential to spread to other parts of the organization’s IT estate.

News of a chipmaker’s shrinking production capacity is rarely welcome. The incident at Microchip is particularly troubling because the Biden administration in January 2024 awarded the company $162 million to expand the fabs where it makes its flagship microcontrollers. The administration saw the funding as a boost to the U.S. auto, defense and aerospace industries, reflecting Microchip’s importance as a supplier to the military.

Microchip’s products are designed for mission-critical applications, typically in things that move fast — cars, planes, rockets — or used in remote places like space, where NASA will use its chips in its next-generation High-Performance Spaceflight Computer (HPSC).

The company also offers foundry services – and if this incident has disrupted that process, it means problems for the silicon supply.

Cyberattacks on chipmakers are not uncommon: this year alone, we’ve covered such incidents at TSMC, Nexperia, and AMD, while previous examples of such attacks include the 2022 Nvidia ransomware incident. ®