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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

#401

Post by epylar »

cletus wrote: post #55
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…

I agree with this but it's even worse than that. Estimates on Bitcoin energy usage put it at over 1TW now. I believe it was comparable to the energy consumption of Argentina. Advocates will defend this by saying most energy usage is renewable. This conjures the image of someone with a bunch of solar panels but the reality is that it's primarily hydro power because that's the cheapest. Thing is, in regions with cheap…

What estimate puts it at 1TW? I'm seeing an estimate of 148.77 TWh per year, which is about 17GW.

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

#402

Post by minikites »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #382
ren_engineer wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

people always point to this dumb metric, "we're producing more than ever" compared to ourselves, while ignoring that the number in comparison to the rest of the world has dropped massively. Our share of global manufacturing is tiny compared to what it used to be

I've worked for manufacturing companies my entire 30+ year career. It's not a dumb metric. It's usually pulled out in response to the silly complaint that "the US doesn't manufacture anything anymore." Sure, our share of global manufacturing is smaller, but that's hardly surprising when many more countries up their manufacturing game. A more interesting metric would be US percentage of total worldwide manufacturing a…

>I'd rather be building complex medical instruments than toasters.

Why? In what way is it better to have a handful of elite workers creating a handful of units sold to a handful of consumers instead of having many ordinary workers producing many units for many consumers?

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

#403

Post by nanidin »

cletus wrote: post #55
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…

I agree with this but it's even worse than that. Estimates on Bitcoin energy usage put it at over 1TW now. I believe it was comparable to the energy consumption of Argentina. Advocates will defend this by saying most energy usage is renewable. This conjures the image of someone with a bunch of solar panels but the reality is that it's primarily hydro power because that's the cheapest. Thing is, in regions with cheap…

> Estimates on Bitcoin energy usage put it at over 1TW now. I believe it was comparable to the energy consumption of Argentina.

I'm not sure this factoid is germane to GPU shortages, since no one is using GPU's to mine bitcoin these days.

It would be more relevant to cite the energy usage of Ethereum or Dogecoin.

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

#404

Post by coryfklein »

pjscott wrote: post #313
pbourke wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple’s move, a decade ago, to control their own silicon seems quite prescient.

They have their own chip designs, but the manufacturing is done by TSMC.

Well they certainly weren't going to be able to fabricate their own Intel chips, that's for sure! Baby steps, my friends.

(Not that it's in any way fair to call "design your own chip" a baby step haha.)

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

#405

Post by bagacrap »

HenryKissinger wrote: post #345
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As parent indicated, they are machines that make chips.

How were the chip-making machines made before there were chip-making machines? Can't chip-making machines be made without chips? Yes. The very first one, at least, was made like that.

or was made with a handmade chip

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

#406

Post by nneonneo »

Snitch-Thursday wrote: post #207
Kye wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this have to do with cryptocurrencies/cryptoassets? It's almost a decade older than Bitcoin. The inspiration (SETI@Home) is even older.

I think parent is advocating doing folding@home over stuff like PoW crypto since the former advances science and the latter (handwaves vaguely) doesn't.

Unless someone manages to turn out a hash collision or an all-zeros hash (spoiler: they won’t), there is absolutely no scientific value in the PoW process itself. (Whether the resulting cryptocurrency has scientific value is left as an exercise to the reader).

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

#407

Post by quantumBerry »

skohan wrote: post #247
DSingularity wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pandora’s box has been opened. There will always be another coin to pump and dump and thus there will always be another coin to mine.

Don't you think it could be aggressively regulated against? I doubt it could be completely stopped, but demand could be sharply reduced if using and mining cryptocurrency carried sharp legal penalties.

It could, but governments have a hard enough time sharply reducing drug use, and that has something tangible to search for and find. Trying to find some bits in the ether or even worse guess whether someone is memorizing a seed phrase is nigh impossible to prove or extinguish.

Mining will be carried out wherever someone could get away with it, which is basically any western country where it is legal and any 3rd world country with internet access and power. It would be like trying to stomp out coronavirus in the entire world -- when you apply the "vaccine" somewhere, the reservoir just lives somewhere else.

The issue is while the legal demand will drop, the illegal demand will remain, which is the only one you're trying to stomp out. As a deflationary currency much value will be lost, but it will retain pricely enough market cap to sustain the black market.

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

#408

Post by rfd4sgmk8u »

yoavm wrote: post #361
rfd4sgmk8u wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are proposing is an authoritarian regime that can control what software is permitted to be run. This is madness, and will doom humanity. There is a reason that free speech is such a critical component of free societies.

You don't have to control what software is permitted to run: you can just ban changing USD to Bitcoin and vice versa. Stop the exchanges. Most people aren't mining their own coins anyway.

You can ban a lot of things in life. Theft. Drugs. Crime in general.

You may not understand how the OTC market works in jurisdictions like China that do indeed ban cryptocurrency exchanges and prevent fiatcryptocurrency exchanges. A fist full of RMB can be swapped for USDT, which can be swapped for BTC from OTC brokers.

What you are proposing can only be stopped by breaking computers, breaking arms/legs and breaking economies. Violence is never the solution to problems.

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

#409

Post by hathawsh »

klohto wrote: post #145
ozarkerD wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine question because I’m unfamiliar with the market. Why aren’t competitors undercutting these big players? 40% is ridiculous

What competitors lol? You can't exactly make chips in a basement.

That's starting to change. Sam Zeloof is inspiring. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7E8-0Ou69hwScPW1_fQApA

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

#410

Post by neb_b »

bongoman37 wrote: post #400
neb_b wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, thank you for providing fast and cheap remittance payments to poorer countries.

sarcasm? Nobody uses crypto for remittance payments to poorer countries. It is mostly used by rich folks in countries like China to get around exchange restrictions.

That's not true
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