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The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

cnbc.com

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Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#41

Post by mort96 »

cortesoft wrote: post #16
stingraycharles wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But you still have a shortage, right? People still want microchips. In ideal conditions, the price will stabilize at the level where every chip gets sold, but nobody who wants to pay that price has to wait in line for too long. But if you reach that point, you still have a whole lot of buyers who still want a microchip, but who are unable to pay for them at those elevated prices - i.e a shortage.

With fuel, you can reduce your car usage for a while and when prices get back down you can just go back to your old level of fuel consumption. But with microchips, a reduction in "consumption" results in pent-up demand; people who have been waiting a while to buy a new GPU still want to buy that GPU when the prices go down.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#42

Post by dralley »

postpawl wrote: post #28
devney wrote: post #11

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!

If I go to “shop all” in the refrigerators section of Home Depot’s site and look at the count next to the filter for “smart” features - Only 97 out of 798 refrigerators they sell have smart features.

That was, at one time, true for "smart TVs" as well.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#43

Post by azornathogron »

mhh__ wrote: post #17
devney wrote: post #11

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!

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.

You're the first person I've ever seen who says they want a connected washing machine. I'm curious: what will your washing machine script do?

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#44

Post by slver »

mhh__ wrote: post #33
slver wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world isn't driven by "I should have all the nice things I can imagine". How are you gonna script the washing machine to take the underwear off your bottom and put it in the drum? You'll have to do that yourself. And when you do it, you might as well "script the washing machine" by pushing the buttons on it. I'm a programmer and honestly I can't wait for this IoT fad to die down a little. Sure, maybe it's cool to…

What? I want to make the washing machine starting drying after a specific amount of time after the wash stage has finished. And guess what mr programmer, they didn't bother letting me do that with the front panel...

Most (all?) washing machines have a delayed start.

Why would you want your clothes to sit wet, collecting mold, before the drying begins?

See, part of being a good programmer is figuring out a solution using the tools you have. Which includes figuring out how existing machines address your issues without requesting they come with a fully programmable API and wi-fi, just so you can delay the drying cycle.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#46

Post by ajross »

ArkanExplorer wrote: post #24

Ban cryptocurrency exchanges and some of the wafer capacity currently being dedicated to mining will return to regular use (or we can just wait for the ETH2 merge, then ban the purchase of PoW cyrpto). Secondly get workers back to work by ending COVID-era unemployment payments and workplace restrictions.

My understanding is that most of the "shortage" is in older processes where capacity is shrinking as fabs offline older tooling. Customers with parts that are stored as masks (e.g. engine controllers from the 1990's) or whose design teams have lost the expertise to resynthesize the HDL (again: think auto manufacturers) have very few options when capacity in these older processes starts disappearing.

Crypto hardware is generally "just logic" which means that it's (1) fabbed on fairly modern processes and (2) generally quite portable to other processes just by recompiling your Verilog and wiring it to a different manufacturer's PCIe PHY or whatever.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#47

Post by kiddico »

mhh__ wrote: post #17
devney wrote: post #11

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!

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.

Connected washing machines continue to make little sense to me. The only benefit I can think of is a notification when it's done. Otherwise all the interactions with it are done in person. (loading/unloading etc)

What would you want to script?

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#49

Post by neysofu »

ArkanExplorer wrote: post #24

Ban cryptocurrency exchanges and some of the wafer capacity currently being dedicated to mining will return to regular use (or we can just wait for the ETH2 merge, then ban the purchase of PoW cyrpto). Secondly get workers back to work by ending COVID-era unemployment payments and workplace restrictions.

I have a suggestion - how about we stop fucking with each other's civil liberties just because we don't like the current situation, and rather we come up with real solutions?

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#50

Post by katbyte »

slver wrote: post #26
mhh__ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The world isn't driven by "I should have all the nice things I can imagine". How are you gonna script the washing machine to take the underwear off your bottom and put it in the drum? You'll have to do that yourself. And when you do it, you might as well "script the washing machine" by pushing the buttons on it. I'm a programmer and honestly I can't wait for this IoT fad to die down a little. Sure, maybe it's cool to…

I couldn’t imagine not having smart lights, they are one of the few iot devices that make my life a lot more comfortable- def not a novelty
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