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TSMC hikes chip prices up to 20% amid supply shortage

asia.nikkei.com

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Re: TSMC hikes chip prices up to 20% amid supply shortage

#81

Post by Haga »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #32

Supply shortage is another way of saying demand excess. I don’t see much evidence that TSMC ever really slowed production, at least for their most advanced processes that are in high demand. This is yet another way we’re all forced to pay the price for cryptocurrency. As long as GPUs are profitable for mining, they will be purchased and put to work. The saddest part is that each additional GPU added to the mining net…

We do not talk about the offerings to the paperclip optimizer aka the crypto cracker aka rokos basilisk in this house in this way young man.

Re: TSMC hikes chip prices up to 20% amid supply shortage

#82

Post by akircher »

_huayra_ wrote: post #73
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #32

Supply shortage is another way of saying demand excess. I don’t see much evidence that TSMC ever really slowed production, at least for their most advanced processes that are in high demand. This is yet another way we’re all forced to pay the price for cryptocurrency. As long as GPUs are profitable for mining, they will be purchased and put to work. The saddest part is that each additional GPU added to the mining net…

Honest question: is it possible to make a cryptocurrency that does not rely on some real-world scarce resource (e.g. chips, electricity, drive space)? This seems to be a cornerstone of what makes any crypto valuable in the first place (scarcity), and as long as that scarcity has real-world consequences, it seems like it would have the same result. Chia claimed to "Save the world from proof-of-work wastage", but it wo…

“Work” doesn’t have to be wasteful. It could be based on the number of pieces of litter that were collected, the number of meals to the homeless that were served. It’s just easier to measure when work is something wasteful.

Re: TSMC hikes chip prices up to 20% amid supply shortage

#83

Post by csomar »

laputan_machine wrote: post #24

My PC is 11 years old this year. I've been waiting to upgrade it for 2 years but held off because GPU prices are utterly ridiculous. I don't know who can afford these inflated prices, I was hoping things would settle but it doesn't appear to be the case.

A modest new desktop will be definitively much better than anything you could have had 11 years ago.

Unless you are looking for high-end gaming, the most important parts will be your motherboard and SSD (nvme) speed. You could get all high-end components except for the graphic card, and just wait it out and replace it later when the prices come back.

Re: TSMC hikes chip prices up to 20% amid supply shortage

#84

Post by gbaygon »

_huayra_ wrote: post #73
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #32

Supply shortage is another way of saying demand excess. I don’t see much evidence that TSMC ever really slowed production, at least for their most advanced processes that are in high demand. This is yet another way we’re all forced to pay the price for cryptocurrency. As long as GPUs are profitable for mining, they will be purchased and put to work. The saddest part is that each additional GPU added to the mining net…

Honest question: is it possible to make a cryptocurrency that does not rely on some real-world scarce resource (e.g. chips, electricity, drive space)? This seems to be a cornerstone of what makes any crypto valuable in the first place (scarcity), and as long as that scarcity has real-world consequences, it seems like it would have the same result. Chia claimed to "Save the world from proof-of-work wastage", but it wo…

It exists and it’s called “proof of stake”, see Cardano and ETH2 for example.

The pros and cons are debatable but the technology is interesting. If you want to know more I recommend the Ouroboros whitepapers by IOHK.

Re: TSMC hikes chip prices up to 20% amid supply shortage

#85

Post by lobochrome »

ATsch wrote: post #71
zip1234 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While Crypto is certainly a contributor to demand, I think a large part of the problem is related to a demand spike similar to the 'toilet paper shortage', where companies try to stockpile because they hear there will be a shortage, which in turn makes the problem worse. Additionally, COVID stoppages caused chaos in supply.

The toilet paper shortage is kind of a bad example, because it was caused by a very real and sudden shift in demand from the very seperate commercial and personal toilet paper manufacturing markets.

Is there a source for this?

Re: TSMC hikes chip prices up to 20% amid supply shortage

#87

Post by icegreentea2 »

LinuxBender wrote: post #56

Is TSMC based out of Taiwan? Do they have fabrication plants anywhere else? What company will pick up the demand if/when China takes control of Taiwan?

Samsung and Intel are the other two closest fabs in terms of technical capability. TSMC is clearly in the lead right now. And while the gap is very large in technology cycle terms (they're between 1 and 2 generations ahead at this point), in real world terms (like... considering what a fucking gongshow China invading Taiwan would be), it's not -that- big of a deal. It'd be a major speedbump, but not world changing (as opposed to the other ramifications of an invasion).

Re: TSMC hikes chip prices up to 20% amid supply shortage

#88

Post by positr0n »

qeternity wrote: post #54
officialchicken wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love how crypto has become easy-to-blame, when in fact datacenter after datacenter is being stuffed to the brim with chips for ML workloads. It's important to recognize when consumers are being squeezed by multiple market forces.

Datacenters are not deploying consumer GPUs.

But datacenter CPU/GPUs take the same wafers, machines, and factory time slots as consumer GPUs. Which that is the price increase this article is about.

Re: TSMC hikes chip prices up to 20% amid supply shortage

#89

Post by simonh »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #32

Supply shortage is another way of saying demand excess. I don’t see much evidence that TSMC ever really slowed production, at least for their most advanced processes that are in high demand. This is yet another way we’re all forced to pay the price for cryptocurrency. As long as GPUs are profitable for mining, they will be purchased and put to work. The saddest part is that each additional GPU added to the mining net…

GPUs are a marginal factor in this. The main factors are several impacts from Covid-19, US trade restrictions on SMIC chip exports from China (a big supplier of low and mid-range chips which this is actually all about), and the Taiwan drought.

The Covid-19 impact itself is multi-pronged. Many chip plants closed or reduced output due to the lockdowns, but also the silicon used in chip production is the same material used to manufacture vials so vaccine production also impacts high quality silicon availability. Finally early in the epidemic a lot of manufacturers that consume chips, such as car makers, cut production. This lead to some chip foundries being closed as they were non-viable and it's taking a long time for those foundries to get re-commissioned or other foundries to expand to make up the gap in capacity.

Re: TSMC hikes chip prices up to 20% amid supply shortage

#90

Post by icegreentea2 »

orliesaurus wrote: post #35

Goodbye dreams of owning an Nvidia GPU in 2022 - I ain't paying cutthroat prices on ebay/amazon. Guess we're buying Intel! Sidenote: Intel manufacturers their own stuff, and so is Apple right? Their new cool chips are all in-house or are they through TSMC?

30xx series Nvidia GPUs were manufactured on Samsung btw.
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