Among the reasons that led to the shortage world of chips there are some known and others less known. The known ones concern the total or partial halt of the extraction of raw materials and production that occurred during the pandemic phase, in addition to the strong recovery in demand in the post-pandemic era, driven in particular from some sectors industrial, first of all that of the automobile that buys up chips of different types.
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A crisis that only marginally affects the production of CPUs and GPUs and which mainly affects that of LCD development boards, Wifi or Ethernet cards and even that of power supplies, as the CEO of Intel, Pat Gelsinger, pointed out. commenting on the financial results of the company.
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The allusion is to that myriad of low-tech chips that are used to produce more advanced ones. A problem also accused by Apple and which has weighed, in terms of lower revenues, for about 6 billion dollars which could become 8 billion in the course of 2022 even if – limited to the second half of 2022 – the specialized research company Counterpoint expects a improvement of the framework overall, despite the 70 Chinese locations at the center of full or partial clauses.
Again according to CC Wei’s words: there is a lack of those low-end chips needed to build the machines to produce the chips. And, always listening to the words of the Tsmc manager, while the smartphone industry manages to contain the number of chips it needs, the automobile industry proves to be more dependent on silicon year after year.
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Strategies for the future
The silicon giants are moving, Intel has decided to invest 80 billion euros in ten years to achieve greater emancipation, a similar path is also followed by Tsmc which should open a new production plant in China by the end of 2022.
Peter Wennink, CEO of Dutch company ASML, a leading supplier of semiconductor manufacturing machinery, is optimistic. Speaking on European chip sovereignty on 5 September, he reiterated that you will have more control on everything that binds the supply of semiconductors, while offering no guarantees to support its claims. Asml is also challenged by inexpensive chips that prevent it from being snappy in production.
On August 9, the President of the United States, Joe Biden, signed the Chips and Science Act, a bill that brings in a dowry of 52.7 billion dollars to encourage research and production of semiconductors. In addition to creating 40,000 jobs, the goal is to make it easier for American companies to cope with Chinese power.