I just read the same news from the PlayStation side saying they are slowino down productions BIG time and making them harder to get in the future or whatever
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Largest iPhone Supplier Says Chip Shortage to Drag Into Second Half of 2022
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I ordered my iPhone 13 Pro Max yesterday from ee UK and the wait time is 28+ days!
The representative acknowledged the delay was the chip shortage but also the lorry [truck] driver shortage & Brexit as the reason for the long delay.
The representative acknowledged the delay was the chip shortage but also the lorry [truck] driver shortage & Brexit as the reason for the long delay.
Seriously greed does benefit the top 1% & especially the top .1%… I agree the people on the bottom are hurt the most.
This is a very good analysis and very true. I’m in the semiconductor industry, and as he says, demand is off the charts. It’s not just wafers, substrates are extremely constrained. Add to that the backlog at assembly and test, and throw in extended transportation times and you can see why lead times are at crazy levels. Anyone saying this is artificial as a ruse to raise prices is straight up wrong. Demand on us is almost twice what we can support. We think things will remain tight through 2022.
I believe the Truck Driver shortage is worldwide.
I too am in the industry, working for one of the few that has fabs and can make our own devices, package them & test them, but also uses foundries.
Shortages of labour is a factor that affects shipping - not just through retirements not being covered by new hires in to the transportation industry but also illness due to Covid & disruptions due to lockdowns in various parts of the world. I'm regularly in touch with the supply & client/demand side on 5 continents - it's global. Shipping problems can cause shipping problems - such as a lack of spare/new tires for trucks - including brand new trucks, being supplied without tires... or other spares being unavailable meaning more and more trucks & even trains are breaking down and unable to work fully or at all, carry lighter/smaller loads or no loads at all...
The iPhones & Android smart phones use a lot of tech at the 10-5nm process nodes, which are currently not experiencing (yet) major problems compared to older process nodes... but they also use components that ARE on older process nodes, for a variety of reasons, including for power management/battery charging as just one use case, where the older, bigger process nodes can cope with the power levels involved in ways the new/small stuff simply can't. Lack of pilot availability has and will continue to hit transportation operations reliant on aircraft. Why does this matter? Well, a lot of iPhones travel by air, esp. the special orders including those with engraving etc - they come direct from China - order on Sunday night, have it in your hands on thursday night - well, before all this trouble started...
These are complex situations and systems, reacting to very dynamic forces and events... and people are trying to address these challenges with solutions and thinking that is really for a much more static situation and world - these solutions are unlikely to work, and stand a good chance of making some things worse for a while.
Just In Time or JIT has had it's day, at least for a while, as the pre-eminent way of organising production... and we're also going to see prices rise...including in, perhaps especially in, the semiconductor world. With Intel & TSMC spending $100Bn over the next few years on new capacity - or at least, trying to, given these construction projects are also hit by the shortages etc, they're going to want to see that investment returned quickly. TSMC has net margins of around 38%, down from around 40% a year or so prior (so, price gouging is not something they're engaged in) they'll want to see strong revenues, in part through higher average sale prices, to just get their investments back before the bubble bursts too much... and ditto with the other manufacturers building at the older & bigger process nodes, even if they are mostly using second hand equipment... well, until that all got bought, which has now happened.
Throw in the fact that many suppliers & contractors will not, indeed, are not, surviving this crisis and that means fewer players with increased market power over the demand side through reduced competition... all clouded by increased acquisitions and takeovers.
Expect to pay more and continue paying more in the future.
Hopefully production should reach atleast near normal levels by the time iPhone 14 launches
I actually went back to iPhone 6s from 8 (both 2nd btw)
Not intentionally, bought it as backup to change battery for the 8 one
But I can't switch back with 3.5 mm Headphone Plug
Guess I will use it until it's real slow or battery goes out...
I wouldn’t count on it. Our oldest was a Process Engineer for a large Fab for several years. During the Pandemic he left for an amazing opportunity with one of the 2 big mRNA vaccine companies.
Since then he has received no less than 6 offers from his former employer to return. The latest package offer was unbelievable, but there is no way he will ever go back into the Silicon World.
He has several friends in the same situation. It’s far worse than the media reports indicate. You can bet on it that another Wave will nail Asia.
Wash, rinse, repeat………
Saying the chip shortage is "rather complex" is like saying the population of China is "a little more than 6."
I am not sure where you get your information, but the new nodes have the issues that new nodes always do. When you manufacture at the bleeding edge of technology, there are always speed bumps. They are usually just accounted for and forgiven, but we originally (based on Moore's law) expected to be below 3nm in 2010, and there is a reason we aren't. There are reasons that Intel hasn't managed to release a chip on time since the early 1990's.
Fabs are ludicrously expensive, and there are a lot of green-minded folks who don't like them (and there is no small amount of irony when they Tweet and TikTok about how much they hate them on their cel phones while complaining more people do not go solar - which is manufactured using the same process). They organize and protest against them, which keeps making them even more expensive. I was working for AMD, making processors as the company contemplated building the next FAB in Austin. Robert Redford came to town and told everyone who would listen that "it was time for AMD to just go away." They helped make sure the new FAB wasn't built here.
We knew in 2019 that there would be a world wide chip shortage going through 2022. You simply can't ramp up production quickly enough. The pandemic and subsequent labor shortage, the Texas Freeze, and a couple of other disasters (fires/quakes) did nothing to help. No one I know of is hoarding inventory. We are selling as fast as we can make the stuff. Saving inventory is akin to burning money in a fire. Chips do not increase in value over time. Hoarding would be the equivalent of paying to store product as you pay to lose value before selling when the market is more competitive, further increasing your losses.
There might be some isolated exceptions, but usually, companies want to make as much money as possible. Sell high? Well, this is the high.
We also don't have the ability to mass produce 22Ghz chips and artificially keep the speeds down.
the chip shortage is on older nodes, eg 65nm, a lot of it on 200mm and some on 300mm as well ...
And yes, every new process has its startup issues, but the 5/7nm TSMC processes are not where the chip shortage is happening
Living in Asia near several large factories as well as buildings under construction, it's safe to say that the problem's definitely artificial. The raw materials and labor are both there but specific parts of the supply chain, are inaccessible.
The belt&road is already having an effect on the world.
We've been warned.
The Sony phones could perhaps use a discount but the Motorola and Google phones are already fairly inexpensive. The current retail price of a 128 GB Pixel 6 is $300 or 1/3rd less than what the retail launch price of a 128 GB Pixel 4 was two years ago.
Also, carriers often market phones with varying discounts and/or inflated trade offers so carrier price differences between the phones aren't necessarily the same as the MSRP differences.
Agree 100% !
Apple has NO issues getting chips with the most-advanced TSMC process node, because they have NO competition there !
But, for chips manufactured on legacy TSMC process nodes, Apple competes with others for those run-if-the-mill chips.
Tim Cook has basically said so, but at a much higher level of detail, of course.
Apple's newer products have significant supply constraints here in San Diego !
The 2021 iPad mini is probably the best example, almost impossible to get !
At some point, perhaps Feb, many Apple consumers who want to upgrade their iPhone will simply wait for the iPhone 14.
I'm in that camp !
The issue is NOT production - the volumes being produced is already massively higher than it has EVER been.
The issue is demand.
That, and perhaps to a lesser extent, the constant badgering of chip manufacturers by customers for these chips to give them special priority to deliver what's been ordered, in full and on time... and failing that, to demand a conversation with the CEO of whichever chip manufacturer is being badgered.
These chip manufacturers have hundreds, if not thousands of customers, and hundreds, if not thousands of SKUs. It's simply not possible to give any 1 customer special priority over any other and get an optimum outcome overall. Things are simply too dynamic. Besides, what makes any one customer more or less of a priority than any other, all things being equal? I know some customers believe they should have priority because they buy such high volumes, usually at reduced prices (and margins). Maybe priority should go to the smaller volume buyers who are often more profitable customers for chip manufacturers. Except their products in turn may also be vital to the operations of these big volume buyers. It's a very tangled web. And some customers are simply not going to survive this crisis because they just can't get enough chips in time to produce enough of their own product & get the sales needed to generate the cash to keep their businesses going. Probably through no fault of their own. Very sad.
For sure this is a factor...
But it's simplistic in reality...
Sales people can be pretty good in sand bagging, in deflecting, when it comes to reasons for missing sales targets. As can their managers.
It works. For a while. But at the end of the day, shareholders will not care so much... because there are so many opportunities to help clients in the current troubles, but it needs a little bit of creativity, of seeing things differently, and of a little bit of extra hardwork. The challenge for the typical sales person is that this is not what they typically do, being so focused on commissions and pushing their products & services. The conventional approach to sales & selling is simply not very well equipped for dealing with disruptions (and opportunities) of this magnitude.
This alternative approach is no panacea, no silver bullet, no guarantee. But it is so much more appreciated by clients in trouble. And they remember things like this.