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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.
Heaven forbid you treat human beings with dignity and respect.
 

Guess Tim wins more than he loses. 🧐
Didn't know Tim Cook was CEO of TSMC too
 
Apple is THE premium customer in tech and will always get preferential treatment from suppliers because of that.

This puts Apple in a better spot to weather this shortage than every other company on earth.

Time to collectively take a deep breath and relax that unnecessary tension in our sphincters.

While true, I believe this demonstrates just how serious this is becoming globally for many products.

I was having my 5,000 mile service done at my Toyota Dealer yesterday and almost fell over pulling in the lot and seeing it 75% empty. Especially anything AWD or an SUV/Truck. This is a high volume dealer and they simply can't receive their orders due to production slowdowns and or stoppages from the Chip Shortage. My Sales Rep has never seen anything like this in his 30yrs with the dealer.

Starting to get serious.
 
The fundamental problem is that in the year 2000, there were about 30 companies that made their own integrated circuits.

Then, they discovered that it's a lot cheaper to outsource, and now we have only a handful of companies producing chips while the demand is higher than it has ever been. Even AMD outsource their actual chip manufacturing to companies like TSMC.

To combat this, Intel and TSMC have both just recently announced plans to invest a lot of money ($20 and $100 billion, respectively) to increase capacity to meet demand. Intel is also planning to open its doors to other manufacturers, like TSMC and Samsung are already doing.

TL;DR version: investments are being made to combat the chip shortage, but it will take some time (probably going well into 2022) before the increased capacity becomes available.

To add, AMD did not so much as outsource as spin out. AMD spun out their fab business, and merged/consolidated it with a few other small fabs, to form Global Foundries. The reason for this is competitive and supply-related.

AMD found themselves in an interesting position. They had a bunch of fab capacity they could not use all by them selves, but fabless competitors would not trust them to be a contract manufacturer because doing so would require essentially handing over the crown jewels to a direct competitor. So they decided to spin the fabs out on their own - this way the fabs would operate independently, making both AMD stuff and competitors' stuff without worry of secrets being disclosed.

Intel finds themselves in the same situation today. They have a tons of fab capacity, but it's difficult to convince competitors to use that capacity.

Samsung addressed the same issue in a different way. In the US, Samsung owns what is (I think) the largest single fab, Samsung Austin Semiconductor. But this company, while a Samsung subsidiary, is run very independently has a lot of separation between it and the parts of Samsung that work on Samsung products. They give competitors comfort this way. However, Samsung's product lines are also so wide that Samsung thinks they can keep this fab 100% busy making just Samsung products.

Also, it is worth mentioning COVID. This shortage probably would have happened anyway, but it would have been less sudden without COVID. There is basically a backlog of orders that went unfilled when a bunch of the fabs were shut down and they've not been able to dig themselves out of that hole since.
 
Don't forget low crime rate too!
Ranked #7 for highest crime index rating according to



The Florida crime rate is higher than the national average crime rate.

or #21 for most dangerous according to



or #27 for safest according to



So it would seem Florida doesn't have a low crime rate (above national average for crime rate/below national average for safety)
 
While true, I believe this demonstrates just how serious this is becoming globally for many products.

I was having my 5,000 mile service done at my Toyota Dealer yesterday and almost fell over pulling in the lot and seeing it 75% empty. Especially anything AWD or an SUV/Truck. This is a high volume dealer and they simply can't receive their orders due to production slowdowns and or stoppages from the Chip Shortage. My Sales Rep has never seen anything like this in his 30yrs with the dealer.

Starting to get serious.
It's a serious bottleneck for sure.

However, everything I have read about the situation indicates that the supply side shortage will be alleviated sometime next year.

Of course, experts have been wrong plenty of times before, but there's not much we can do about it but hope for the best.
 
I wouldn't be surprised that Apple decides to shelve the M1X-based 14" and 16" MacBook Pro models and instead start up production of the M2-based MacBook Pro models around October-November this year instead.
 
Trade war! Knew this is coming. This is what happens when the US block China from making chips!
That or a perfect example of why you don’t want the world’s chip production in a hostile country run by a communist dictatorship.
 
Ranked #7 for highest crime index rating according to





or #21 for most dangerous according to



or #27 for safest according to



So it would seem Florida doesn't have a low crime rate (above national average for crime rate/below national average for safety)
Do I really need a /s for FL?
 
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I wouldn't be surprised that Apple decides to shelve the M1X-based 14" and 16" MacBook Pro models and instead start up production of the M2-based MacBook Pro models around October-November this year instead.

That decision has already been made (one way or the other) and the whole "March event" farce suggest which way it went.

Releasing an A14 derived M1X in March/April would have been o.k., doing so in in June or later just before A15 (and maybe M2) based devices ship just sounds wrong.
 
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.

Because a $20+ billion silicon foundry does not get planned, approved, constructed, and staffed in the US on a moment's notice.
 
I dont believe much of this report... Apple is the priority customer for TSMC, as well as shipping channels. Apple has paid the asking price to be put to the head of the line for all orders. There may be issues at certain points that cause some delays, but it won't be anything like what you've seen with Nvidia or AMD orders. Although, it's safe to assume even some of their delays have been manufactured to increase demand. Apple aint no fool, they'll capitalize on the assumption that the industry is in turmoil and hope to parlay that into record orders from panicked consumers.
 
Blah blah. iPads will release next week and sell out instantly, last product release (AirPods Max) happened like this and built so much hype that they’re still hard to get!
 
The fundamental problem is that in the year 2000, there were about 30 companies that made their own integrated circuits.

Then, they discovered that it's a lot cheaper to outsource, and now we have only a handful of companies producing chips while the demand is higher than it has ever been. Even AMD outsource their actual chip manufacturing to companies like TSMC.

To combat this, Intel and TSMC have both just recently announced plans to invest a lot of money ($20 and $100 billion, respectively) to increase capacity to meet demand. Intel is also planning to open its doors to other manufacturers, like TSMC and Samsung are already doing.

TL;DR version: investments are being made to combat the chip shortage, but it will take some time (probably going well into 2022) before the increased capacity becomes available.
HP head said it’s going to be a very tough 6 months before supply side catches up. She was talking about the market as a whole, not just HP.
 
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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.
Good post, except you got the numbers of wafers per hour wrong.
Equal or greater than 170 per hour, last time I visited I read it can go up to 250 per hour.

Screenshot 2021-04-08 at 17.17.16.png



These are huge, you can see the size in the this video from ASML, right at the beginning.


 
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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.
This would be a potential supercycle for many people. Apple better not f this one up. Otherwise people will just forget about iPad as a market segment and find other alternatives.
 
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Glad I picked up my M1 air when I did. Although I did have to wait a month it was worth it.
glad i picked up my Macbook Air in 2011!

and this Florida manufacturing plant is a great idea, but WINX _Newz will not allow that, "too much benzine is the water, air and suntan lotion is threatening and damaging " they will scare these snowbirds with, non stop.
 
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