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TSMC hikes chip prices up to 20% amid supply shortage

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

#541

Post by kragen »

rfd4sgmk8u wrote: post #307
syntheticnature wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Kardashev Type III civilization, but all it does is mine bitcoin at the same rate as today.

You might be joking, but I am not. When put on a Kardashev scale, all these energy concerns seem pathetic. Terrawatts? Lol. Zettajoules of energy await us in the stars!

I agree that terawatts seem pathetic when you're thinking about even Kardashev Type I, but I would hate to see those zettajoules of energy spent on zero-sum competitions instead of goods and services that improve our standard of living. That's still true even if the competition consists of Bitcoin instead of the nuclear arms race, Wheel of Fortune, Democrats vs. Republicans, World War II, and NASCAR. I mean, at least Bitcoin and NASCAR don't burn cities, but they aren't building space habs either.

0.1% of our energy being spent on Bitcoin mining is fine, 1% might be a little worrisome, 10% would be a real wakeup call, 50% would be a crisis, and 90% would be ruinous. Is there a natural limit? Competition from alternative currency systems with cheaper transaction costs, maybe?

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

#542

Post by kragen »

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.

Most people who use Bitcoin here in Argentina seem to be sending remittances to their families in Venezuela.

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

#543

Post by kragen »

randomopining wrote: post #125
gootler wrote: post #86

Taiwan is China.

At this point it's literally it's own country called Taiwan.

The official name for the country is 中華民國, or in English, "Republic of China". Its national anthem is called 中華民國國歌. "Taiwan" 臺灣/台灣 is not found in the official name of the country. Sometimes it uses the name "Chinese Taipei" in international organizations.

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

#544

Post by jollybean »

ren_engineer wrote: post #172
pcurve wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their margin is approaching 40%. They're basically printing money at this point. It's hilarious how a manufacturer can be so profitable nowadays.

"service economy" was always a meme being sold to the gullible masses, manufacturing capacity is the only thing that matters for an economy. Manufacturing has always printed the money It amazes me how the US allowed itself to be nearly deindustrialized after manufacturing effectively won them WWII and global dominance. Now the US can't even make ventilators or face masks

"Manufacturing has always printed the money"

Not really, it's usually the least profitable part of the supply chain.

That American businesses would gladly hand over their profits to poorer countries is irrational at face value.

TSMC is more than a manufacturer, they are a provider of very sophisticated in-demand tech for which the manufacturing process itself - is high tech, high stakes, high barriers to entry.

They are a little bit like Boeing in that the 'making' part is really hard. Less so like Flextronics.

Depending on how countries react to this, we could very well be in the opposite situation in 3 years, where we have a vast glut of chips and parts of every kind.

TSMC is not going to charge their customers 'prevailing market value' i.e. they could spot price at 5x their current prices, because it'd be gauging and the supply change would react long term to that 'bad behaviour' by TSMC. Big supply chain relationships are longer term so those things matter.

Because of the huge players involved with enough cash do influence (i.e. Auto, Apple, Samgsung) maybe we're in for a strategic alignment beyond just a fab shop in Texas.

One big caveat to all of this is that though manufacturing itself is low profit, a lot of things around that can become profitable. Making moulds, adjusting designs, managing supply chains, optimizing designs etc. - all of this becomes 'know how' that moves over to the manufacturing side and if they are smart about it, they'll leverage it.

Also, manufacturers can possibly develop some market power which they can try to flex as well.

Hopefully we see a shift to more high quality intelligent manufacturing in the Western world by leveraging tech, robots etc. and convincing consumers to pay higher prices for some things.

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

#545

Post by kragen »

DanTheManPR wrote: post #199
randomopining wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point it's literally it's own country called Taiwan.

The government of Taiwan has been willing to maintain the status kayfabe, including maintain the "Republic of China" name and holding China's seat at the UN for a couple of decades. It all seems quite ridiculous from the outside, but a lot of people in the region still get quite pissy about the particulars.

Governments are all 100% kayfabe. They only exist in people's imaginations, same as a game of chess.

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

#546

Post by didntknowya »

ren_engineer wrote: post #172
pcurve wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their margin is approaching 40%. They're basically printing money at this point. It's hilarious how a manufacturer can be so profitable nowadays.

"service economy" was always a meme being sold to the gullible masses, manufacturing capacity is the only thing that matters for an economy. Manufacturing has always printed the money It amazes me how the US allowed itself to be nearly deindustrialized after manufacturing effectively won them WWII and global dominance. Now the US can't even make ventilators or face masks

99% of manufacturing is low paid, manual jobs which most countries can't be bothered to do and outsourced them because of the margins.

these lucrative manufacturers invested heavily into specialist machinery and are reaping the benefits.

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

#547

Post by jpm_sd »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #540
jpm_sd wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a nightmare. A broker in HK recently quoted me $71/ea for an industrial temp rated 10/100 Ethernet PHY (KSZ8081MNXIA) ... That is a roughly 50x markup. We're making a design change instead. I am now buying qty 500-1000 of any new part that is getting designed in, before the design is even started. Our Analog Devices sales rep told me to expect another 12-18 months of everything being completely fucked. That was…

Be careful out there. We got burned by a scam broker in HK: - Establishes a physical address, might be an abandoned building. - Sets up a web site with full catalog of parts offered, many hard to find. Might be an actual defunct business they are fronting to look authentic. - Take orders, demand payment in advance. - Operate without shipping anything (they don't have any inventory) until the police start poking aroun…

Oh yeah, I've told my manager it's only a matter of time until we get burned. So far we have had decent luck with Heisener and Win-Source but prices keep climbing.

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

#548

Post by jpm_sd »

user3939382 wrote: post #531
jpm_sd wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a nightmare. A broker in HK recently quoted me $71/ea for an industrial temp rated 10/100 Ethernet PHY (KSZ8081MNXIA) ... That is a roughly 50x markup. We're making a design change instead. I am now buying qty 500-1000 of any new part that is getting designed in, before the design is even started. Our Analog Devices sales rep told me to expect another 12-18 months of everything being completely fucked. That was…

I found it on Amazon for $8, not sure what quantity they have: https://smile.amazon.com/1Pcs-KSZ8081MNXIA-Txrx-3-3V-32Qfn/d...

"Brand Name: Nonbrand" really inspires confidence.

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

#549

Post by randomopining »

kragen wrote: post #543
randomopining wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point it's literally it's own country called Taiwan.

The official name for the country is 中華民國, or in English, "Republic of China". Its national anthem is called 中華民國國歌. "Taiwan" 臺灣/台灣 is not found in the official name of the country. Sometimes it uses the name "Chinese Taipei" in international organizations.

They should just give up the name China, give up the claims to the mainland etc and just become Taiwan.

Also, get nukes from the US and say that they will use first strike if they are threated by CCP.

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

#550

Post by mrfusion »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #160
StephenSmith wrote: post #115

I'm in charge of sourcing components for multiple companies right now. I believe they could double (100%) prices and companies would pay it. There's chips that I'm sourcing from obscure places in China just to get the part and paying whatever price they ask. Designers are getting overwhelmed because they're having to redesign boards for components that are available, only to realize by the time they finish the change…

Concur. We are currently paying a chip broker $6.30 for an Infineon chip we typically buy by the 100,000s for $0.47. Cuz without them, our customers cannot sell their $10,000,000 product.

No problem paying six dollers then?
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