Global Chip Shortage Threatens Production of Laptops, Smartphones and More


So it begins... The promised inflation. It starts gentle, like the wings of a butterfly.
Then, you see things like bread go up. Why? Because the ovens have electronics. Their maintenance is more expensive because of components and transport (the oven-repair service uses a van... with has microchips). Gasoline will go up. etc. entangled mess. And if not entangled, hey others are raising their prices, so do we. Just not the wages though; we are in hard times.
 
Imagine games like "My Summer Car" where you build a whole Car but whit a Modern Car?? You would have to code the Firmware yourself, the Internet Manual for Building would be much bigger.. it could be our Cars want become Oldtimers in the future, because the Elektronics dont survive that long..

You can still drive Ford Model Ts , (in every color, as long its black), which are 100 Years old, the first Unimog where from the 1950thes, so 70 Years old..

Would a Tesla Model S be drivable in 100 Years? maybe its Chassis is still there, but the Computer will be gone, and the Batterie Pack..
Even my Fiat Doblo which is not that advanced wouldnd survive that long because its got Engine Elektronics..

Whe cant go back to Mechanical Controlled Engines yet because they need precice controlls to keep the Emissions low, but you could build a Elektrik Car whitout Elektronics: A Potti to controll the Curent that gos in the Electric Motor, Hydraulic Brakes work even on my Bycicle whitout the need of a Power Source, and a big steering wheel...

My first Car also ditnt had any Electronics: I drove a Peugeot 205 gr, i believe it had Engine Controll via Mechanics, and no Servo Steering..
 
Guys, get it together! Even if our combined compute power would fall back to were it was some years ago, we didn't die out then.
IC birthrate went down (or demand rose? doesn't matter), not away. Either it'll come back up or someone'll build another fab or two. Sand ain't rare, you know.
 
I just think about it: Whit a Chip Shortment, you cant play Games like "My Summer Car" ^^
But GTA Vice City as i allready have my Pyra and my Notebook from 2011
The Members of this Board should also have thyre Computers allready, some might be quite old
 
So it begins... The promised inflation. It starts gentle, like the wings of a butterfly.
Then, you see things like bread go up. Why? Because the ovens have electronics. Their maintenance is more expensive because of components and transport (the oven-repair service uses a van... with has microchips). Gasoline will go up. etc. entangled mess. And if not entangled, hey others are raising their prices, so do we. Just not the wages though; we are in hard times.
Well, I don't know economics but I think it depends on pice elasticity. At some point people simply use fewer chips and carry on.
Guys, get it together! Even if our combined compute power would fall back to were it was some years ago, we didn't die out then.
IC birthrate went down (or demand rose? doesn't matter), not away. Either it'll come back up or someone'll build another fab or two. Sand ain't rare, you know.
True. Besides, some chips have very nasty things in them, so the fewer the better and the more expensive the better. Unfortunately, shortage or no shortage chip production seems to be concentrating even further in one monopoly-to-be.
We'll have to do some work to be able to use old chips longer and stop requiring stupid features to everyone. If your friend can't get AV1 working on their hardware, you can always IRC instead of videoconference, or whatever.
 
You can still drive Ford Model Ts , (in every color, as long its black), which are 100 Years old, the first Unimog where from the 1950thes, so 70 Years old..

Would a Tesla Model S be drivable in 100 Years? maybe its Chassis is still there, but the Computer will be gone, and the Batterie Pack..
You can replace batteries when their capacity wanes so much, and then recycle the rare metals for other uses eventually. Good luck recycling the petrol that you've burned to move your petrol car. The thought is that it's how much you use the car versus it's age in years, and the latest research suggests cars lose 10% of their capacity after 200k miles. And if you compare an electric car to a petrol car you'll discover that break pads wear, clutches slip and need replacing, head gaskets fail, gears shear inside gearboxes. On an electric car you still need to replace the break pads periodically, but I've heard that's more often because they've got rusty because the car's regenerating power into the batteries to slow down rather than using the breaks to convert motion into heat a lot more, but there's no clutch to slip, no gearbox to blow up, no head gasket to blow, just tyres and break pads need replacing with any kind of regularity.
 
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We'll have to do some work to be able to use old chips longer and stop requiring stupid features to everyone. If your friend can't get AV1 working on their hardware, you can always IRC instead of videoconference, or whatever.
I like the BattleStar Galactica lore, where, to explain the old button ships in the original series, they retroactively added the fact that machines took over the new technology spaceships, and all that was left was old technology.
That being said. I love the demo's slav's make on old z80 tech (It's weird that I do not consider the C64 to be "old tech"). But we're a small population part that do not adhere to the plug and play, but fiddle, fiddle some more, hey it works. Dismantle to make room for other projects... most people would just go and buy a new set and be flashy-new instead of sticking to the old.
 
You can replace batteries when their capacity wanes so much, and then recycle the rare metals for other uses eventually. Good luck recycling the petrol that you've burned to move your petrol car. The thought it that it's how much you use the car versus it's age in years, and the latest research suggests cars lose 10% of their capacity after 200k miles. And if you compare an electric car to a petrol car you'll discover that break pads wear, clutches slip and need replacing, head gaskets fail, gears shear inside gearboxes. On an electric car you still need to replace the break pads periodically, but I've heard that's more often because they've got rusty because the car's regenerating power into the batteries to slow down rather than using the breaks to convert motion into heat a lot more.

 
My Post was more like: How to make an Car when you have GLobal Chip Shortage...
I mean you dont need Chips to run an Elektric Motor, . ..

I looked on the Tesla Order Page yesterday, nice cars but too expensive and what would i need 220 km h for when whe get 130 kmh Limit soon in Germany? Wherent these Elektric Cars meant to save Energie? Whit the Batteriepack of a Tesla but not the Power of its Engines, and whitout these heavy toys they have (allthough autonomous driving sounds cool), whe would get Cars who help saving the world...

A Chassis, 4 Tires, Stering Wheel, Hydraulic Brakes, a seat, batterie, Elecric Engine, and a Potty, you dont need more for an EV..
 
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Could be when the Green Party will become power on the Bundestag ^^, I dont care that much, my Doblo is a Mini Bus /Transport Car and not a Racing Car, so i dont drive that fast anyway.., sometimes 150, but most time 130 and 80 whit Trailer.. allthough i got it once up to 180 ..
 
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My Post was more like: How to make an Car when you have GLobal Chip Shortage...
I mean you dont need Chips to run an Elektric Motor, . ..

A Chassis, 4 Tires, Stering Wheel, Hydraulic Brakes, a seat, batterie
Without a BMS? ( = chips) No thanks!
 
When I'm tired or something 130's a good speed for me, but when I'm fully there floating along the Autobahn at 130 for a longer time makes me sleepy and lose focus.
 
So you'll end up driving 130 km/h if you ever happen to drive 130 km/h ^^
One should think that, but no. When I go in somewhat tired, 130 might be the speed fitting to how much I can focus/how much attention I can pay. When I'm awake though and going slow is mandated for too long, ol' brainy gets bored, it wanders off. I force myself to stay on task. But that's exhausting and from that I get sleepy. So I'm off worse. And though I then get uneasy, cause I recognize my lack of focus, brainy ain't interested, 'til the limit's lifted, I can go faster and need to keep track of everyone around me again.

Actually I experienced that along a long building site, where they blocked off one lane, the two remaining were narrowed, and the limit was 80. I tried the nice citizen way on the right lane, but what I just described was going on then. When I switched and went 100 on the narrow left lane passing the others, I was fully engaged again and could continue feeling much safer.

I'm just extrapolating from that to 130, if that was the limit. when I'd go from were I live now to Berlin again - then taking three hours.
 
When I'm tired, I drive behind someone that is not tired. The problem is that I keep too much distance and that cars get in between (which forces me to slow down until I, again, get enough distance for three seconds reaction time). I re-discovered the ODB2 interface and I made it work under windows. As ODB is just a COM port interface, it works under Linux, however, I have not been able to find free implementations (there is a python lib, but it's payware, so I can't bundle it.
http://www.obdtester.com/pyobd
and there's closed source software for Linux, like this one:

So for now, I'm analyzing data to find the optimal fuel efficiency speed for my car.

Here's more about OBD2, it starts very high level, but the last 5 minutes explain much better the protocol and how it works:
 
(there is a python lib, but it's payware, so I can't bundle it.
http://www.obdtester.com/pyobd
You sure? The file obd_io.py ("For Python developers, pyOBD provides a single module, obd_io, ...") starts with
Python:
#!/usr/bin/env python
###########################################################################
# odb_io.py
#
# Copyright 2004 Donour Sizemore (donour@uchicago.edu)
# Copyright 2009 Secons Ltd. (www.obdtester.com)
#
# This file is part of pyOBD.
#
# pyOBD is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
#
# pyOBD is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with pyOBD; if not, write to the Free Software
# Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA
###########################################################################

What about this list?: https://www.elmelectronics.com/help/obd/software/
 
Ah, yes, the basic library is free (and functional). However diagnostic software for a specific car brand that uses this lib is not free. Basically, you need to know what query ID codes your car accepts and you need to create your own gauges and graph data.

You can use ODB2 in 3 ways (I think):

  • Get realtime data (temperature, RPM's, velocity) and either display with gauges or record it to a file, for later playback/analysis.
  • Get active errorcode and reset the error (so that the light goes off again in your display - the free lib is able to do this, according to the docs)
  • Update firmware, "tune" (even fubar your car if you set wrong parameters - most of this can't be done with free implementations, because all cars are different and you need to know for each brand what the "sport" settings are).

So to have a realtime display, I can buy: https://plotly.com/python/gauge-charts/ or play with: https://www.andrewshay.me/blog/how-to-create-a-gauge-speedometer-graphic-with-python/
So that's not the problem. The problem is the knowledge of, say the second temperature sensor after the catalyst. This sensor is much more heated than the first sensor, before the catalyst. So at certain points it will fail. There are telltale signs this will happen when the sensor starts measuring erratically. But it could be the catalyst itself that is failing because, say, it's blocked. But when it's blocked you get a drop in power. So the only way to "know" is to drive for 15 minutes at constant speed, record the data and then view it in a graph.
 
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