For years I've been asking: Why does my toothbrush have to connect to bluetooth? Why does my refrigerator twitter? These were always useless mis-features and we can hope some of them can get pared down now with the shortage. Bring back old style dumb appliances!
The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences
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Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences
#12> Production of low-margin processors, such as those used to weigh clothes in a washing machine or toast bread in a smart toaster, has also been hit. While most retailers are still able to get their hands on these products at the moment, they may face issues in the months ahead. I understand why the new advanced chips could face shortages, but why are there shortages for these basic chips. Can’t they be made anywhere…
My understanding is there is a substrate shortage as well as a foundry slot shortage.
This is correct. The industry is currently constrained on everything from water to wafers, in addition to fab time slots. Everyone is panic buying too, so shortages are getting amplified.
Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences
#13I've always wondered what it would be like to suddenly lose the ability to build higher technology like computer chips. Obviously this is just a shortage and not the same as manufacturing just vanishing, but the effects will be interesting to observe.
Many products like water boilers, ovens or toasters can be built more robust without digital chips. I would argue we would see a overall quality improvement from having a bad chip shortage.
LOL nobody remembers how to design analog control systems anymore
Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences
#14> Production of low-margin processors, such as those used to weigh clothes in a washing machine or toast bread in a smart toaster, has also been hit. While most retailers are still able to get their hands on these products at the moment, they may face issues in the months ahead. I understand why the new advanced chips could face shortages, but why are there shortages for these basic chips. Can’t they be made anywhere…
My understanding is there is a substrate shortage as well as a foundry slot shortage.
And even then, process nodes aren't fungible. Taping out a design for a totally new (to you) node is probably at least a year of time. And for what? Will the chip shortage be over then anyway?
Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences
#15I've always wondered what it would be like to suddenly lose the ability to build higher technology like computer chips. Obviously this is just a shortage and not the same as manufacturing just vanishing, but the effects will be interesting to observe.
No need to wonder, it's not the first time something like this has happened: https://tedium.co/2016/11/24/1988-ram-shortage-history/
https://www.theverge.com/2012/4/19/2960606/qualcomm-snapdrag...
Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences
#16Why is there a shortage rather than a price hike, similar to what would happen with fuel? Long term contracts?
Well if I take a look at the GPU market the prices have nearly doubled over the past 6 months and there still isn’t any supply. In other words, the price hiked to a point where people will otherwise say “I’ll just wait longer”, and this is what’s happening.
That is always what happens when prices go up. The whole point is to reduce the number of buyers who want the product at that price so that there is enough supply to fill the remaining demand. That is how a supply and demand curve works.
Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences
#17For years I've been asking: Why does my toothbrush have to connect to bluetooth? Why does my refrigerator twitter? These were always useless mis-features and we can hope some of them can get pared down now with the shortage. Bring back old style dumb appliances!
Connected devices are a good thing - i.e. I should be able to make the washing machine scriptable from my computer, but I bet these solutions are always crap because they are implemented in a hurry by engineers who don't understand either the hardware or software well enough to make it work, so you end up with quasi-useless boss-pleasers like we have now.
Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences
#18Let's hope we start making chips domestically after this.
Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences
#19I run into this in Factorio all the time
It's fascinating: because Factorio is deterministic, I always build out one massive, consolidated chip factory and distribute chips to other factories from there. But as we see here, in the real world, with droughts and pandemics, this is a risky strategy.
Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences
#20> Production of low-margin processors, such as those used to weigh clothes in a washing machine or toast bread in a smart toaster, has also been hit. While most retailers are still able to get their hands on these products at the moment, they may face issues in the months ahead. I understand why the new advanced chips could face shortages, but why are there shortages for these basic chips. Can’t they be made anywhere…
I don't know but maybe one of the factors is that given how cheap microntrollers have become it's not uncommon to use an "overpowered" integrated chip just for ease of development. Suppose that you have to drive some LEDs on a washing machine, do you bother developing some optimized bespoke circuitry with discrete components or do you just slap a ~2$ 100+MHz 32bit Cortex controller that will let you implement all the…
It makes me wonder if it would be possible to build a chip-manufacturing plant for any reasonable amount of money to produce these chips that don't need to be 7nm GPU powerhouses, but like the old clunker chips that can't get attention from the big guys.
Almost like starting a "generics" business in pharma medication but for older chipsets.
I'm sure there's a great trade to be had in producing the lower end stuff.