Apple Supplier TSMC Says Global Chip Shortage Likely to Last into 2022

[wanha]

Yes. But compared to everyone else, Apple will be least affected.

There are already substantial rumors that Apple's iPhone, iPad, and Watch supply chain will likely be affected this fall.

 

[duervo]

Apple supplier TSMC today said it is doing all it can to increase productivity and alleviate the worldwide chip shortage, but that tight supplies will likely continue into next year (via Reuters).

The comments followed a reported 19.4% rise in the Taiwanese firm's first-quarter profit, which beat market expectations, thanks to strong chip demand and a global shift to home working.

…

Article Link: Apple Supplier TSMC Says Global Chip Shortage Likely to Last into 2022

Well, that sucks.

 

[Lestdog]

I really hope intel will get their s**t together. TSMC is crushing them and intel has nobody to blame but themselves.

 

[0924487]

This will have minimal impact on Apple's products, because Apple is the King Kong of tech customers - they will always get preferential treatment.

On the other hand, if you were hoping to buy a PS5 this year, better make yourself comfortable while you wait for 2022 to arrive.

PS5 will be fine, things like a Ford or Buick will not.

 

[0924487]

Because it takes years to plan and build out chip fabrication factories and TSMC is ahead of everyone else in the industry despite money and effort (Intel just released their latest desktop chips at the same size 14nm they had when the iPhone 6s came out). Intel had originally planned on going to 10nm in 2015. Samsung is having trouble with their latest process (this is why nVidia gpu's are barely a trickle) that is actually slightly bigger (less advanced) than the one TSMC has been using on the iPhone 12's CPU. Seems its alot of art in there with the science.

Demand went way up with everyone at home as well (and you can't build chip factories that quick). In amongst this the U.S. government (prior admin) restricted use of the big Chinese fab company (don't remember the name) so that took some capacity away. Bit of a train wreck looking at it all.

SMIC is the name

 

[macduke]

It's funny. I haven't built a PC since the mid-2000s and was going to build a gaming PC last year when the new RTX 3000 series came out because 1, Pandemic gave me more time and 2, I had been toying with the idea for a couple years. Well that hasn't happened! I was looking forward to building again and playing some high-end PC games using an RTX 3080 and the newest Ryzen CPU. I was even thinking about water cooling to make it quiet in a more compact case. Guess I'll have to wait for the RTX 4000 series upgrade cycle.

 

[ingambe]

Can’t understand why another chip manufacturing plant hasn’t shown up yet? Competition? Let’s drive prices down and innovation up not create another bloated company.

It's almost impossible to start a chip manufacturing company without any government backing you up.
It's tens of billions of dollars just to be able to produce "old" nodes (where they're already a lot of competition), let's not even talk about cutting-edge nodes.
Also, you will need a lot of land and water.
By the time your first factory is up and running, there may be no shortage anymore.

Semiconductor manufacturing, it's a lot of trials and errors to get the right recipe. This takes a lot of time, and so, a lot of money.
Chinese are investing a lot of money and they are yet to be competitive on leading-edge nodes.

 

[jcmeyer5]

Literally every other manufacturing sector is experiencing overcapacity, yet the chips we can‘t seem to live without can‘t be fabricated fast enough. We need more collaboration and growth in this sector.

That's completely false. Lumber, steel, paper, housing, automotive, and even freight capacity is severely constrained. Steel is nearly 4x the cost it was 8 months ago. Lumber has been increasing since May of last year. Since you cant buy enough lumber to build a home, the housing market is being crushed. In my area, there are usually an average of 2200 houses on the market at any one time. This spring its under 200. Automotive is being hurt the steel shortages and prices as well as semiconductor shortages.

So to channel my inner Jedi... everything word of what you just said was wrong.