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iPad and MacBook Production Reportedly Delayed Due to Global Chip Shortage

What’s the deal with this global chip shortage?? aren’t all chips made in China/Taiwan region? and isn’t Covid in those areas much under control vs west?
If it’s due to covid,how come only chip production is affected and not everything else?
 
Konigi said:
Perhaps it is a good reminder to not buy a new device every year. It's not sustainable.
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Skipped 2018 for bending issue, skipped 2020 because i thought that will have Mini-Led (It was suppose to according to rumors). It didn't, also few weeks after 2020 release we got rumors about 2021 release with mini-led.

In the 2019 there were first leaks regarding mini-led.

This is the one. And i predict i'm not the only one waiting for this.
 
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Mike_Trivisonno said:
Manufacture in Florida! We have great weather and possibly the most resilient power grid on the planet. And we're not on draconian rona lockdown. And we have The Space Coast, Port Miami, and Port Everglades.
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RedTomato said:
Not really cheaper. The technology for tooling a modern chip line has become so advanced and so expensive that even with the resources of the entire world, it's only possible to set up 2 or 3 next-generation EUV chip lines. The machines are insanely complicated - they use lasers to explode droplets of vaporised tin plasma, creating extreme ultra-violet light that needs to be focussed through mirrors to etch the chip - but the mirrors unavoidably absorb 96% of the light.

The power efficiency is around 0.02% so for each 200watts of laser light delivered over a million watts is needed at the wall. Each EUV machine weights 200 tons and only does about 40 wafers per hour, and costs over $120 million, and that is only a small part of what building a new chip line involves - but it's the main limiting factor.

There's more or less only one company that makes them, ASML in the Netherlands, which was formed from a consortium of almost all the research companies working in this field - because the expense and difficulty of developing them was so extreme. So far, I believe there's only around 100 of these EUV machines worldwide, and ASML is working flat out to refine and make more of them.

As you said, it costs around $20-100 billion to set up new chip lines, and the next generation is likely to be even more expensive. It may be that from 2025 onwards, every chip company in the world will have to jointly collaborate to fund a single next-generation line with huge government funding - the costs are just too extreme otherwise.
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Those are great points that I agree with, but you totally misread my comment.

I didn't say chips are getting cheaper, but that it's a lot cheaper to outsource them than it is to develop and manufacture them yourself.
 
-DMN- said:
There’s only a chip shortage because of demand, so why not set up infrastructure so we’re able to build more chips here in the U.S.
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Building things in the U.S. is exactly the reason why we get production issues. If you want things built, you want your supply chain in East Asia.

Unionized workers going on strike, demanding shorter hours, lighter workload, more benefits, only working 5 days a week or less, all the insurances and a higher pay... Those things don't make the workforce employable at a large scale. Engineers, Scientists, and highly-educated specialists? Sure. But the masses? No way.

Then you have Environmentalists and worker safety and ethics lobbyists... It's just not worth the effort to set up anything that requires heavy capital investment or a large low-skilled labor force in the US.
 
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-DMN- said:
There’s only a chip shortage because of demand, so why not set up infrastructure so we’re able to build more chips here in the U.S.
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You've gotten some good replies (especially the one explaining how most vendors outsource their fabrication to just a handful of companies) and some bad replies, but almost everyone's missing the fundamental answer: they are, but it takes years to open up new facilities. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
I7guy said:
Those guys need Tim Cook, supply chain guru, to edumacate them.
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1 month later... 🤣

MacRumors said:
Apple is facing a global shortage of certain components for some of its MacBook Pro and iPad models, causing the Cupertino tech giant and its suppliers to postpone production of the products.

According to the report, MacBook Pro production is being hindered due to the shortage of chips mounted onto the circuit board before final assembly, which is a key step in the overall production process. iPad production is being impacted due to display and display component shortages, the report adds.
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chris1958 said:
The disruption of the chip production after a cold front hit Texas is part of the problem. As long the U.S. doesn't manage to provide stable power supply it is probably wise to produce in other locations.
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It is Texas that doesn't have a power grid that is stable enough to weather problems like that (pun intended), not the rest of the US. That is exacerbated by the refusal / hesitancy of Texas government to connect to other power grids outside of the state.
 
A shortage happening exactly in the year I planned long ago to replace all my major electronics...
At least I was able to get an M1 mac mini at launch and a decent display...
I'm afraid this damn shortage will keep us company at least until the end of the year...

Consider I purchased (and paid) an RTX 3060TI for my new gaming machine in December and still nothing...the store told me I shouldn't expect receiving it earlier than June (which is not even guaranteed)...
 
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Captain Trips said:
It is Texas that doesn't have a power grid that is stable enough to weather problems like that (pun intended), not the rest of the US. That is exacerbated by the refusal / hesitancy of Texas government to connect to other power grids outside of the state.
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Guess they didn’t expect being “The lone Star state” would translate into their 21st century Yelp review.
 
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🤣 Article yesterday claimed production for the iPhone was ahead of schedule and not impacted by the global shortage. Article last week claimed it was delayed because of global shortage.

Which is it? Can't be both. :rolleyes:
 
Konigi said:
Perhaps it is a good reminder to not buy a new device every year. It's not sustainable.
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This has absolutely nothing to do with that. This is a global supply issue impacting FAR more than just smartphones.

GM, Ford, Nissan, VW and others have all had to cut car production due to the global shortage. GM has stopped including fuel-saving features in some pickups because they can't get the required components due to this shortage.

It's not a smartphone issue, it's a global semiconductor issue.
 
Mike_Trivisonno said:
Manufacture in Florida! We have great weather and possibly the most resilient power grid on the planet. And we're not on draconian rona lockdown. And we have The Space Coast, Port Miami, and Port Everglades.
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This is actually sound advice, and the tax rate was lowered yesterday as being deemed "Unconstitutional" at the current rate it was at.
 
ColdShadow said:
What’s the deal with this global chip shortage?? aren’t all chips made in China/Taiwan region? and isn’t Covid in those areas much under control vs west?
If it’s due to covid,how come only chip production is affected and not everything else?
Click to expand...

Covid means higher demand. Even the assumption that it was miners eating up all the graphics cards turned out to be untrue. The shortage is due to much higher demand because everyone is at home and the production is split between highly desirable items such as M1 Macs, Geforce 30xx, Radeon 6xxx, AMD Ryzen, and the PS5. As well as a growth in the number of chips that cars need and then we also have lesser but still desirable items like Xbox, and new mirrorless cameras.
 
Apple, Samsung, Google, Intel and many other big tech companies created this problem. They have a global monopoly over chip manufacturing through various institutions.. bain capital, softbank, sk group etc. Hard drive prices have increased over the last 24 months. Macs, iPads and iPhones aren't shipping with all that much more hard drive space or RAM. I'm looking forward to someone (MacRumors or Vice Media) shining a light on the real issue here.
 
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