As if 2020 couldn’t have gotten any worse with the combination of COVID-19, the unchecked ecological damage of cryptocurrencies, and just about every device imaginable becoming a smart device and needing a CPU of some kind, ta massive chip shortage where the supply was well short of meeting the demand was thrown on top of all that calamity. This meant that a variety of laptops, PCs and – most importantly next-gen consoles – were in short supply.
There was some hope though that the issue would be resolved during 2021 when the world could finally get its hands on some of the latest computing tech without waiting for delay after delay. Only – much like we believed lockdown would only happen for three weeks – it appears we aren’t going to get out of this chip shortage anytime soon.
TSMC, the company that makes processors for Apple, Qualcomm, AMD, and numerous other big consumer tech companies, revealed via Bloomberg that it cannot see the current supply chain bottlenecks going away until the end of 2022:
In 2023, I hope we can offer more capacity to support our customers. At that time, we’ll start to see the supply chain tightness release a little bit.
And it was a concern echoed by Nvidia, who in an investors call last week, revealed that the in people finding a new RTX 30 series-GPU, will likely continue into 2022 and that it will be affecting their bottom line till then too.
Sadly, even though some companies are trying to build new factories to improve the manufacturing of chips, those efforts are unlikely to be completed in the next year and it doesn’t appear as if the problem will be solved anytime soon. In fact, with more smart cars and smart devices coming out on a regular basis, the problem is only likely to be exasperated over the next few years and we could see the supply of our beloved computing components tough to come by for the foreseeable future.
Last Updated: April 19, 2021
Original Heretic
April 19, 2021 at 09:39
It also leads to a raw materials issue. Have we got enough of the stuff to keep making these chips for years to come?
HvR
April 20, 2021 at 07:41
Yeah still lots of silicate, couple of chemicals and copper alloys. Use surprisingly little for lots and lots of chips.
Original Heretic
April 20, 2021 at 08:45
Oh, okay. I thought there might be some strange and rare-ish metals in there, too.
HvR
April 20, 2021 at 09:50
Not for general use electronics and processors.
When you go over to specialized components say for 100’s of gigahertz switch speed and high radiation resistance you would go stuff like germanium-arsenide as your semiconductor and gold for your conductive interconnects.
Alien Emperor Trevor
April 19, 2021 at 10:09
So my PC just needs to keep going strong for another two years.
Iskape
April 20, 2021 at 05:40
This is unfortunate. Without a doubt, I can see the cost of more items increasing accordingly. Look at what has happened with GPUs. People are willing to pay a premium for something!
HvR
April 20, 2021 at 07:45
Good thing is lot more fabs opening up in Texas, Israel and Europe and moving away from China which will make the supply a lot less susceptible to geo-politcal issues. This is the third major supply issue in the last decade .. should have happened a long time ago. Even TSMC moving away from China and back to Taiwan.