Global Chip Shortage Threatens Production of Laptops, Smartphones and More

[fusion_power]

At least the GPU-market is relaxing more and more. Including tons of used Cards from Crypto-Mining-Farms.

And somehow I get more and more under the impression, that China itself has no shortage of Chips, Hardware or anything we were affected from. Can it be they hoard all the fancy stuff for themself? I see no shortage of new Devices comming out of China, we see new Smartphones, PC's, Laptops, and (gaming) Handhelds. They find their way to us, no problem. But while the western Industry still suffers from global Chip shortage, it seems China and Asia itself can produce everything like before the crisis. Interesting.

 

[pyrat]

And somehow I get more and more under the impression, that China itself has no shortage of Chips, Hardware or anything we were affected from. Can it be they hoard all the fancy stuff for themself?

I read some rumour somewhere about a Chinese expert going so far as suggesting China should invade Taiwan just to get TSMC. I wish there was intelligent life in this planet... Let's hope this at least reduces globalisation and we end up less dependent...

I see no shortage of new Devices comming out of China, we see new Smartphones, PC's, Laptops, and (gaming) Handhelds. They find their way to us, no problem. But while the western Industry still suffers from global Chip shortage, it seems China and Asia itself can produce everything like before the crisis. Interesting.

While USA or European car makers don't get chips Chinese car makers increase exports or something, yes.
Well, in theory communism includes centrally planned production and one could say this applies more to China than the West. But I don't really think anything of this applies anywhere.
Also Russia sanctions (from this year for Ukraine and before) and China sanctions don't help this either. Not saying sanctions should be removed, just that we can't pretend they have no effects.
But I still think it all depends. I sometimes read what the Pine64 people post and there seems to be shortages for them too, and I think they produce in China (and/or Hong Kong?).
It's possibly just that big companies get all they want and smaller companies don't. And western companies are not as big as we thought because when you spend decades chasing lesser costs (offshoring, outsourcing, lean, cheapest wages) you become a lesser company.

 

[fusion_power]

Yes, the situation is still bad. And a good reason to get more independent of globalism and Chinese manufacturing in general.

I read some rumour somewhere about a Chinese expert going so far as suggesting China should invade Taiwan just to get TSMC. I wish there was intelligent life in this planet... Let's hope this at least reduces globalisation and we end up less dependent..

I've also heard stuff like that. But why do some people actually think, Taiwan is mainly TSMC? It's just a Company like many others and not that special. China already has modern Semi Conductor Factories, I doubt they would start a war just because of TSMC. Chip Companies strarting to build Factories in other Countries to get more independent. We will get even 2 Intel Chip Factories in Germany. Which is big because so far, we were not that famous here for IT and Computer Hardware. Sad but true.

 

[pyrat]

But why do some people actually think, Taiwan is mainly TSMC?

Oh, the way I understood it (or didn't) it was more like that TSMC was enough to invade Taiwan, not that Taiwan is only TSMC, but that even if it only was TSMC it'd be worth invading. Whatever. Still crazy.

I doubt they would start a war just because of TSMC.

Well, I don't understand why anyone would start a war to get a factory or a company, but then I don't understand why someone would start a war. Period. Too much nonsense. I was never taught transfinite math.

 

[ElPoco]

I know that many companies in Shenzhen tend to favour local buyers. As far as I know it's more cultural (and maybe some business reasons as well) than anything government-enforced.
And big companies that buy in large quantities are also more likely to get their orders fulfilled than smaller companies (because you'd rather keep good relationship with big buyers than with smaller companies).

 

[pyrat]

Seems that SMIC in China is now producing some 7nm chips (not so easily as TSMC, but better than Intel?). Hopefully less of a reason for China to invade Taiwan (or anywhere else).

 

[TeDaDeS]

Seems that SMIC in China is now producing some 7nm chips (not so easily as TSMC, but better than Intel?). Hopefully less of a reason for China to invade Taiwan (or anywhere else).

While a great achievement, 7nm is a longshot using DUV. The process is hard to get stable as it requires many more processing steps. The amount of additional steps mean you can break your chip during development more easily, so your (correctly) working (/yielding) chips are lower. Meaning this process is only viable with a lot of will power and investment.

The comparison with Intel and TSMC is also a bit off. Intel uses its own way of working. They start by researching the process, understanding it and then applying it. Which is a costly but worthwhile adventure, causing this strategy to not really pay of in this unstable process of using DUV for <10nm. TSMC in the other hand likes to have their process engineers get the process stable, no matter what they need to do to keep is running. Opting to use EUV early on when it wasn't matured yet was a risk, but it payed of as it made going from 10nm to 5nm much easier. So SMIC probably uses more of TSMC's approach than Intel's but still using DUV.
Intel learned from its mistake and is trying to adopt EUV with a higher numerical aperture, while reforming all new processes to EUV and using new techniques like putting the power delivery on the bottom of the chip instead of integrating it with the chips logic.
So while AMD has a focus on using more chip(lets), Intel is aiming at having a radical new chip design which should allow chips to run a much higher clock speeds while using less energy and also allow better cooling.

So while SMIC is bolstering a fancy 7nm design (btw. are they sure SMIC doesnt just secretly out-source production to TSMC? If not they probably have ex-TSMC engineers), Intel, TSMC and Samsung are probably already working on 3nm and beyond. Meanwhile SMIC will be stuck at 7nm until they can get EUV or with the magic of highly skilled process engineers can get sub-7nm working. But 7nm was a stretch already.

The reason for invading Taiwan isn't only because of TSMC, while it probably is a factor. China has always seen Taiwan as part of it's country, so only because of the increased risk of trying to become independent it escalates to a forceful regime change.
I rather think the invasion becomes more likely as other countries will setup their own semiconductor factories to remove the dependency on Taiwan. If the world doesn't depend on Taiwan, why would they risk a full out war with China to defend them.
It's probably in Taiwan's interest to become independent sooner rather then later, and even then countries are hesitant to start a war over defending them.

 

[FBnil]

Remember the shortages in fertilizers a few months ago? That would lower yields, and countries starting to protect/hog crops. We suddenly see:

Dutch Inflation is up (as it is in many parts of the world):

Inflatie stijgt naar 10,3 procent in juli

Consumentengoederen en -diensten waren in juli 10,3 procent duurder dan een jaar eerder.

www.cbs.nl

So as chip production ramps up back again (but due to the higher price, they have not lost income) next year we'll be hungry (or poorer, due to the higher price in food), but have over-capacity of chip production. And you can't eat those chips with fish.

 

[pyrat]

Now stocks of chip manufacturers go down because people fear lower demand after warnings from Nvidia and Micron. Go figure. I doubt demand will really go down so much. PCs maybe, servers hardly, and gadgets, cars and IoT will possibly buy more and more complex chips, so they may even replace PCs demand etc. Could be that people is relatively tired of Intel, AMD, Nvidia and things diversify a little? ARM, RISC-V, more custom ASICs, bespoke CPUs...

But now that experts say the world no longer wants chips, there's no reason to invade Taiwan, ok, China?

 

[levi]

Probably not the warnings that are creating the downturn in demand. Probably the increase in the price of natural gas (methane) and petrol (gas) and the increase in the price of grains influencing food inflation, due mainly to the war in Ukraine. But whatever the cause there's less money around for IoT crap and other computery bits people don't actually need. If you've got an old computer with win 7/8 on you can make it much more useful by installing linux on it.

 

[netcat]

poorer consumers are wiser. can't just push change with intangible gains. finally / hopefully

 

[FBnil]

If you've got an old computer with win 7/8 on you can make it much more useful by installing linux on it.

I got you covered, bro, here's a tutorial for that: https://www.guru99.com/install-linux.html
I tried it. And Linux is slower than Windows... so I don't really recommend it. Besides, by using Linux you are stealing from software engineers because Linux Users don't pay for the software. The software engineer's families go hungry. Not only that, by not buying a new Laptop you are making hardware producers stay poor, and the hardware engineer's (and retail's) family go hungry. And as a result the economy collapses. I got a study made by Bill Gates, the conclusions are irrefutable. If you use Linux the economy collapses... so please stop using it!
Also, Steve Ballmer had referred to Linux as a "malignant cancer," so if you don't want cancer... don't use Linux. Linux also is demonic. It has demons, but ask a Linux engineer if it has angels... and it does not.

Errata: I just learned that Linux is full of angels! they are just called changelogs.

 

[FBnil]

poorer consumers are wiser. can't just push change with intangible gains. finally / hopefully

Not so sure about that. I go with the premise that in each economical segment there are wise and idiots.
Being poor usually requires some sort of escapism to endure the suffering of life. Drugs, Alcohol...
While a millionaire also suffers, yes, but he'd buy a yacht and go splurge in a casino to forget the sorrows of life.
I see poor people walk with brand named clothing and rich people with just what's comfortable. So the spending distribution is different.
So, if a machine, say a Raspberry Pi4, has enough prestige and is affordable, it might be bought by the rich guy, for the novelty. But not by the poor guy, because it does not grand additional status. They'd go for the more expensive mac, paid in monthly installments, for a duration of 4 years. The company is friendly and helps out: https://www.apple.com/apple-card/monthly-installments/

so: You need to have a little money to move away from the environment of poor people with consumerism mentality. Once you are in the medium to higher middle class you could break that cycle. Because low middleclass don't go to the cheap market, they now go to the most expensive supermarket, just for appearances.And so, are more in debt than high lowerclass people.

Corporations will not change the mentality, they created and sustain this mentality to sell more.

 

[levi]

I got you covered, bro, here's a tutorial for that: https://www.guru99.com/install-linux.html
I tried it. And Linux is slower than Windows... so I don't really recommend it.

That depends what you're running on it. I run X with openbox here, and usually use tmux after connecting to my video server using ssh, which I also use with i3 on X to check videos and things locally to it. Everything fits in RAM so no swapping needed, and while I do have to quit this browser if I want to watch something at 1x speed, that's more about the power of this old CPU that was originally designed as a low power chip for running winXP and stuff on.

 

[FBnil]

That depends what you're running on it. I run X with openbox here, and usually use tmux after connecting to my video server using ssh, which I also use with i3 on X to check videos and things locally to it. Everything fits in RAM so no swapping needed, and while I do have to quit this browser if I want to watch something at 1x speed, that's more about the power of this old CPU that was originally designed as a low power chip for running winXP and stuff on.

I agree with your statement that there are ultra-light distro's and Linux setup's that fly (figuratively). But the same can be done with Windows: https://beebom.com/what-is-tiny10-lightweight-windows-10-how-to-install/
(I just grabbed the first link I found, so no idea on benchmarks, RAM usage, etc)

 

[TeDaDeS]

My assumptions: We had covid lockdowns and people got a lot of stuff. Now they have to go to office again, and they either don't need more stuff, can't afford more stuff or don't have time to use their stuff.
So the 2nd hand market will be flooded with cheap stuff compared to the new stuff, which there is also a bunch available now. So at the same time there is a shortage or the latest stuff, there is an abundance of recent stuff.
The latest stuff is more expensive and there is all kind of reasons things are more expensive at the moment. So on average less stuff will be bought, and costs are a bit higher, causing issues for companies.
If China continues to 'practice' around Taiwan it might just hinder the Island enough to get it to problems with getting supplies and exports. Which will not improve the situation.

I agree with your statement that there are ultra-light distro's and Linux setup's that fly (figuratively). But the same can be done with Windows: https://beebom.com/what-is-tiny10-lightweight-windows-10-how-to-install/
(I just grabbed the first link I found, so no idea on benchmarks, RAM usage, etc)

While true, Linux gets a lot of updates and usually works on all kinds of platforms. While Windows usually works as-is, and can be pretty fast, the operating system or applications might not get updates anymore.
So it depends on your needs. Current computers (even raspberry Pi's) will not have any issues running either OS, but more antique hardware (single core cpu's with hardly any RAM) might favor bare-bone Linux.

 

[levi]

I agree with your statement that there are ultra-light distro's and Linux setup's that fly (figuratively). But the same can be done with Windows: https://beebom.com/what-is-tiny10-lightweight-windows-10-how-to-install/
(I just grabbed the first link I found, so no idea on benchmarks, RAM usage, etc)

That's impressive, but if you can't take updates I'd worry connecting it to the internet to be honest. I do beat it it for RAM usage with my laptop here running a browser and video player as the most heavy RAM users uses only 1.1G of RAM whereas even Tiny10 seems to use 1.6GB for running nothing. My video server even though it's started X and is running tmux attach inside a terminal window while transcoding a video is only using 660MB of RAM, which is a surprise to me.

 

[ElPoco]

Not so sure about that. I go with the premise that in each economical segment there are wise and idiots.
Being poor usually requires some sort of escapism to endure the suffering of life. Drugs, Alcohol...
While a millionaire also suffers, yes, but he'd buy a yacht and go splurge in a casino to forget the sorrows of life.
I see poor people walk with brand named clothing and rich people with just what's comfortable. So the spending distribution is different.
So, if a machine, say a Raspberry Pi4, has enough prestige and is affordable, it might be bought by the rich guy, for the novelty. But not by the poor guy, because it does not grand additional status. They'd go for the more expensive mac, paid in monthly installments, for a duration of 4 years. The company is friendly and helps out: https://www.apple.com/apple-card/monthly-installments/

so: You need to have a little money to move away from the environment of poor people with consumerism mentality. Once you are in the medium to higher middle class you could break that cycle. Because low middleclass don't go to the cheap market, they now go to the most expensive supermarket, just for appearances.And so, are more in debt than high lowerclass people.

Corporations will not change the mentality, they created and sustain this mentality to sell more.

It's a bit more complex than that. If you read French, there's a very interesting book "Où va l'argent des pauvres ?" ("Where goes the money of poor people?") that explains how some "absurd" consumer pattern from poor people actually make a lot of financial sense (and also how the need for self-actualisation is more of a "basic" need that we usually think ok).

Sure, some poor people will buy expensive stuff for self-actualisation, but not necessarily more than rich people do. It's just that it's more visible when it's poor people who do it.
Having a little more money is still a great way to escape poverty, not because it changes your mentality but because being poor is very costly (see the Vimes Boot Theory).

 

[netcat]

yeah i dunno either now i suspect FBNil is all image conscious. nah.... couldn't be.

It's gonna get really bad when the poor spend all their savings and become desperate. crime will spike but our police force is too feeble to deal with more than 5% of burglary calls.

 

[ElPoco]

The police isn't there to deal with burglaries (unless the victim is a bank or a millionaire). They're here to sign the form that you'll send to your insurer... and to bash heads if either you or the poor and desperate try to revolt.