The US has a stable power supply with the exception of Hawaii and Texas, Hawaii cause it’s an island and Texas cause their power Authority is greedy and use Texans’ pride to blind them towards a better way.
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iPad and MacBook Production Reportedly Delayed Due to Global Chip Shortage
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My 2018 12.9 inch iPad Pro still runs great.
Still up to date after nearly 3 years (with an insignificant update in between) ...
Still up to date after nearly 3 years (with an insignificant update in between) ...
If only apple didn't historically squeeze their suppliers dry. Who would give them the preferential treatment now?
Unless one works for Apple, why would anyone get any kind of tension in their sphincter if some corporation didn't get some components in time?
I’m wondering if this is what CAUSED the delay, or what will cause a FURTHER delay when apple finally announces stuff, hopefully, this month.
It's not a semiconductor issue, global or otherwise.
I work for one of the the few semiconductor companies that makes its own chips, at least most of them. We have facilities in the US and overseas. And we also use foundries. Something like 30% or so of our business is automotive, a similar amount is industrial, a fair chunk in computing & data centers, and so on. We're active in almost every market you can name.
The trends in the use of various kinds of devices have been well observed for some time and investments in capability and capacity have been in place for some time to meet those projected needs.
What happened last year when Covid hit was that many of the large automotive manufacturers saw orders drop 80-90% overnight. And they passed that on to their supply chains just as quickly.
Spending by consumers shifted to other parts of the economy, driven by responding to changing needs driven in turn by covid - working from home, remote schooling, medical equipment, entertainment gear and so on.
Automotive demand came back quicker than anybody initially expected. Some automotive companies chose not to revise their reduced orders and to book ahead, for understandable reasons - despite being advised multiple times that capacity might become constrained quickly, as demand was looking to grow far quicker than new capacity could be brought on stream.
This situation hasn't been brought on by a reduction of capacity or poor planning by the semiconductor industry, but by an inability or a lack of desire by some major players to not order much and too far in advance, just in case. They forecast it wrong, which is so easily done.
The current demand is huge AND it's a bubble. Why would a semiconductor company spend $100s of millions or billions on new capacity that comes on stream about the time the bubble bursts?
Says who?
Resellers mainly stocking base models has been a thing for decades.
Same with them giving 5-10% of sometimes even on release.
-> they are selling well and for all we know they might be selling better then any MB in years.
Why would TSMC invest $100B into increasing capacity if this were only a short term issue?
I could be wrong, but I think what will happen is that higher spec products will become the priority during the shortage.
Yes we do: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191108-why-the-world-is-running-out-of-sand
And apart from resource depletion, it's just the mere environmental costs of creating new devices that just have incremental benefits.
I guess they could just leave out the DVD drive, a few old ports, hard disk, and memory slots.
Not all of this is about increasing capacity to meet the spike in demand. A lot of it (most of it?) was already planned investment - it's now going to happen in the US rather than Taiwan. As TSMC and other foundries drive new process nodes, there are still many customers happily using much larger and older process nodes, in fabs that will likely not be viable to host the newer generation of process nodes. The newer small process nodes have yields that are significantly lower than the more mature processes and will take longer to reach parity, if that's at all possible, especially for EUV wavelength lithographies. And demand at these smaller newer process nodes is big and growing... so you need to build more fabs than before just to maintain the same volume of die.
I already sold my iPP11 in preparation for a possible March/April release. The only stock available now in my local Applestore are iPad 8/Airs.
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One would think that the rumored March release of the iPad Pro which didn’t happen, could well have been related to this report. Initially was expected to be released or hosted an event at various dates in March, then the rumors shifted to the April. Only this time no one dares to to give a date for the April event. Otherwise they would have to shave their eyebrows if they turn up wrong.
Based on what’s going on now (with different proposals), I think it’s safe to say that we already are witnessing the delay. Apple already has unofficially delayed by at least a month.
Based on what’s going on now (with different proposals), I think it’s safe to say that we already are witnessing the delay. Apple already has unofficially delayed by at least a month.
This is correct, and now with reports of the cellular variants coming later, that is more of expected delay.
I am fully expecting the iPad Pro WiFi in both sizes launching next week, probably shipping next Friday with the cellular variants shipping sometime in May...
Whatever happens unless your quick you will likely have a 3-4 week wait regardless.
The timing of this stinks. I have an immediate need for several M1 MBPs as Vectorworks is optimizing their BIM/Rendering for it. I don't want to buy a bunch of $4k intel MBPs just to wish I waited a month but my old machines are starting to tank. (and yes, I know 13" are available but we're an architecture firm ... we need big screens)
Likewise on being conference for the iPad Pro or iPad is a main machine there are some caveats there are some restrictions but for most of what I do daily currently I don’t need the MBP. That said I’m waiting there M one version with more power and more month and a slightly different design then I’ll convert and get the MacBook Pro 14 inch.
I think you should get the screen replaced or repaired and then donate it unless you can use the extra money don’t trade in an apple donate it to a kid in need in your neighbourhood I’m sure they’ll have great use for it paying it forward in the apple ecosystem.
LOL the chip shortage is because of demand but not simply by Apple is the entire technical industry going from anywhere from Neil to Tesla to Apple to Samsung etc. etc. etc. they are all causing a demand even the demand on lithium for rechargeable batteries in all the things we use is in extreme demand and in short supply because of the refining process we seen bigger demands on ram and when facilities get destroyed from natural causes this is something different. Setting up an infrastructure in the US like really buddy are you willing to work for two dollars US per hour on the assembly line? I highly doubt that!
The USA has not been a Textile country in over half century
This situation on market shows how one little component can ruin many ambitions and as noted, Apple is premium customer for most of its suppliers. We all has to be patient now.
I think in several critical supplier areas Apple is big, but are the really a premium customer? They drive a lot of volume but the days of that being a good thing alone for any one supplier in this industry are behind us to the tune of 25 years - 1996 to be specific. The stupendous amount of money needed to build a fab for the bleeding edge nodes requires really solid margins to be made - and that means not trading margin for volume. This effect is perhaps most strongly at work in a related supply area - lead frames for many chips - specifically for PDIPs. There is so little margin on these that it's only a matter of time before the remaining few producers of these lead frames are facing the cost of investing in new presses etc to replace current ones as they do wear out... and deciding that there's not enough margin to make continuance economically viable. Demand is still quite high for these... it's not always a lack of demand that kills something off... It's possible that the end markets for devices in these packages may be prepared to pay a tenth of a penny more each, which is a big increase in price paid in proportionate terms... one that can be eaten by the end customer if not the OEM... the costs & risks of redesigning a board simply to use the same device but in a different package, which may also force a change in some key manufacturing processes & flows may be far less attractive than paying an extra 10th of a penny to keep the supply of PDIPs coming... You don't see these packages in your smartphones, laptops etc etc, but they are still very widely used. Semiconductors by volume going in to phones & computers is a tiny portion of the total semiconductor volume annually - heck, simple microcontrollers outsell these in volume terms by at least 1 if not 2 orders of magnitude.