The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences • Hacker News Board

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#621

Post by look_lookatme » Mon, May 10, 2021, 5:07 AM UTC

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #599

epistasis wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the size of these trucks has completely put me off ever wanting one. I miss the small ones from a few decades ago... great for surfing, hauling the ver occasional bit of stuff, just as useful as the ugly beasts of today but far cheaper and more maneuverable and safer. I think we need to start requiring commercial drivers licenses on some of these beasts. They are intentionally designed to be difficult to see ou…

>Yeah, the size of these trucks has completely put me off ever wanting one. I miss the small ones from a few decades ago. You (statistical you as a HN user, not you personally) say this with one breath but one look at the B pillar of an 80s minivan and you'd start coming up with excuses for why it's not safe enough for your kid. The same demographics that complain about cars growing do a hell of a lot more complainin…

Not to mention that a full sized F150 is less than an inch wider than one from 25 years ago. What people see when they see truck size is vertical size and hood lines which is what has changed the most. Trucks look much bigger now, which is partly aesthetics and partly for safety, but I think people have internalized a belief that they have grown outward too, which is not the case.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#622

Post by spfzero » Mon, May 10, 2021, 5:11 AM UTC

neltnerb wrote: post #193

smiley1437 wrote: post #58

Interestingly, there is an embedded video in that article that explains the issue specific to the automotive shortage - it's because the automotive industry cancelled a lot of chip orders in anticipation of low vehicle demand and that caused chip makers to reduce their production for the kinds of chips that go into cars, and now it takes time to ramp back up: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2021/03/02/how-the-global-compu…

I get that this is a potential big problem, but I had to stop reading when the dog washing company blamed needing to respin a new board on a chip being out of stock due to this. I'm sorry, but if you aren't buying enough chips to build all the boards you want to build of a revision, this is just what happens, chip shortage or no. Stuff gets obsoleted all the time, it doesn't take a chip shortage. Blaming a black swan…

Sometimes, well, actually all the time, you can’t exactly predict the eventual demand for a new, unique product.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#623

Post by cerved » Mon, May 10, 2021, 5:23 AM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #501

This idea would have been unforeseen a century ago when they were contemplating guano shortages: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.atlasobscura.com/articles/w... It’s fun to imagine a shortage 100 years from now that isn’t even an iota of an idea yet.

nice, de-amped

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/when-the-western-world...

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#624

Post by look_lookatme » Mon, May 10, 2021, 5:25 AM UTC

9000 wrote: post #618

Snoozle wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I'm not the one claiming a modern Tacoma is as big as an old F150. Why is the burden on me to prove information presented as fact with no supporting evidence?

Well, the burden of proof is on you for saying that there are small trucks on the market. But, it turns out that the complaint about the Tacoma is spot on. The Tacoma's weight has increased from the 3155 lbs. - 3877 lbs range when it was first released [0], to now being in the 4,425 lbs. – 4,480 lbs range [1]. In comparison, the 2020 Ford F-150 weighs in the range of 4,069 lbs – 4,653 lbs [2]. For fairness, a Ford F-…

Couple of notes. Length numbers are more like 10-15 inches different between generations if you account for trim configurations. Single cab trucks just aren’t sold anymore which is separate from this discussion. The Taco is also more narrow than an F150 which I think is relevant to this discussion.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#625

Post by cerved » Mon, May 10, 2021, 5:28 AM UTC

de6u99er wrote: post #547

Funny, because I am saying since many years that Europe needs it's own semiconductor production and Silicon Valley. But no, we must rely on our American friends who not only spy on us, but constantly rip us off, while themselves producing in Chine and Taiean.

Why do we need semiconductor production? It's a global shortage, not a European shortage

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#626

Post by cerved » Mon, May 10, 2021, 5:39 AM UTC

honkycat wrote: post #364

I've eyeing a gaming PC for a while. I game, do music production, amd also do i die game dev. If I buy an all in one I'll pay a $500 premium but I'll be able to actually acquire all the components. Hackernews, please tell me: should I pull the trigger before it's too late, or hold off for the panic to subside?

ATM it's mainly affecting GPUs so it depends on which GPU is included and the Delta to the prince on the secondhand market.

Like one where I'm at, the 6700xt is going at about MSRP +$500

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#627

Post by rajacombinator » Mon, May 10, 2021, 5:40 AM UTC

baybal2 wrote: post #235

throwaway3699 wrote: post #2

I'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.

The industry has largely forgotten how to make stuff without chips. That's why I am telling people that a global chip shortage, if something happens to Taiwan, would bring the industry not back into fifties, but into the iron age. The further the tech ladder you go, the harder you fall if somebody takes out your engineering bay.

What could happen to Taiwan? I’m interested.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#628

Post by akoster » Mon, May 10, 2021, 6:37 AM UTC

andrekandre wrote: post #512

U.S. tech giant Intel has offered to help but it reportedly wants 8 billion euros in public subsidies toward building a semiconductor factory in Europe. wow.... my immediate reaction is "then it should be a public foundry, if payed for by the public"... but maybe im missing some detail/nuance...

IIRC doesn’t Intel have an (older) Ireland-based fab in Lexlip? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leixlip

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#629

Post by ChuckNorris89 » Mon, May 10, 2021, 6:44 AM UTC

neilv wrote: post #604

baybal2 wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're popular because they're pretty decent, low cost, have good dev boards and offer a wide variety of parts. Now find a single person who can program bare hardware on a short notice on above Arduino level. The current chip shortage has claimed 6 of our firmware devs, all hired by companies ready to spend just any money for anybody "who can replace that ____ing STM|NXP|Renesas thing" People downstream in the ind…

> The current chip shortage has claimed 6 of our firmware devs, all hired by companies ready to spend just any money for anybody "who can replace that ____ing STM|NXP|Renesas thing" Condolences on the loss of coworkers. But this seems interesting to software people who haven't been doing embedded, but who can wrangle C well enough to adapt (quickly?) to embedded constraints and interfaces.

Embedded development is more than just wrangling C, that would be like saying backend dev is wrangling EC2 instances ;).

It's knowing how low level hardware operates and knowing how to dig yourself out of the various gotchas like for example figuring out that a last minute replacement of the crystal oscillator by the HW team with a cheaper one is now screwing up your boot process or that the reason your products are starting to go haywire after 6 months is an interrupt triggering too many writes to the flash, wearing it out prematurely, etc.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#630

Post by p_l » Mon, May 10, 2021, 6:52 AM UTC

avs733 wrote: post #415

nostromo wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is largely a result of just-in-time manufacturing. Companies hate holding on to inventory. Most companies now don’t hold on to any extra stock needed to manufacture their products. This is great for your finances in normal times. But don’t complain when there is a shortage and you literally have zero slack for delays and your factory sits idle — that’s the well-known drawback.

I agree but with a caveat, it's largely a result of BAD just-in-time manufacturing. Zero inventory production systems (ZIPS) are what people often mean when they talk about JIT, they are different. Toyota, one of the originators and leaders of JIT/lean has not had this problem...because they don't blindly ZIPS [0]. Not holding inventory is great for a lot of reasons, but it is a calculated risk...Toyota learned from…

(probably wrongly worded)

Wouldn't toyota model essentially set a required buffer size in kanban, essentially ensuring a certain level of stock decided upon by risk management?

The pull flow would then ensure that the stock fluctuates around that value instead of being driven to 0, because taking a "card" out of stock might trigger purchasing of more stock?