Global Chip Shortage Threatens Production of Laptops, Smartphones and More


Just got that from Conrad:

Dear customer,
First of all we would like to thank you very much for the trust you have placed in us on
behalf of the entire Conrad Team.

We appreciate the long-standing, trusting cooperation with your company very much and we
will continue to assure you the best prices with maximum product range competence and
fast delivery times as a reliable partner for all technical business supplies.

In many product ranges, we - as well as the entire market - are currently experiencing great
challenges in keeping the current purchase prices stable in the face of global shortage of
goods, increasing transport costs (e.g. container shortage) as well as rising resource prices.
Almost every hour we receive news from well-known manufacturers regarding upcoming
price increases. In addition, we have to continue to ensure fast transport routes at
acceptable prices for you.

Due to the current situation and given the background of general further price increases in
the near future, we are facing great challenges to maintain the current prices at a stable level
for you in the long term. Despite our efforts, you will probably see price increases for a part
of our products in the future.

The entire Conrad team and, of course, I will personally do our best to make sure that this is
not the case. We then advise you to anticipate your needs in order to avoid this situation.

Best regards

Frank de Groot
Regional Director Western Europe
 
of general further price increases
I've seen it in news from SouthAmerica: There is a shortage of prime materials, like, say, plastic sheets from China to make things, like, plastic bags, in Argentina. So this increases those prices. At this rate we are going slowly into hyperinflation within 6 months...hopefully the better case of superinflation where all prices are just up, but not your salary.
Why look at SouthAmerica? Because when prices increase, 1st world countries like Europe's and NorthAmerica are able to cope with the new price, so they siphon the scarce resources and leave 2nd world countries without. So if the resources decrease further, we will start feeling it in the 1st world countries.
 
 
They said the deal is estimated to be valued at £63m. That's $87 million dollars. It's kinda hard to call this a big deal, largest or not.

You gotta give the UK credit for admitting they won't be manufacturing any chips though. Remember earlier in this thread when a few US companies wanted $50 billion from the government to build a chip plant here?
 
That's good news for 2022, it means production is ramping up and by then the market will be flooded with cheap chips.
 
 
Toyota is known for its "Lean" engineering which aims, among other things, at reducing stock-keeping because it's supposedly costly and inefficient.
 
That's odd. They reported on the radio (but that doesn't seem to have translated through to their website report) that it was only hitting them this late because they had stock of the microchips they needed closer to manufacturing.

In less argumentative news, Eben Upton reports the shortage is even hitting the Rasberry Pi makers now: https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/20/raspberry_pi_supply_eben_upton_interview/
 
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I was particularly interested in the part about the blackout in Texas affecting NXP - presumably the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack would also have affected it (?) - given how many Linux device manufacturers seem to be using their chips for products that have open hardware as well as software... (at least, from what appears to be the case on linuxgizmos.com)

EDIT: Really made me think about a Mr. Robot S1 plot line...
 
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