Kind: captions
Language: en
let's talk about shortages in 2021 we've
seen news of how a lack of chips can
actually hurt industries a global
shortage of computer chips continues
hampering the auto industry and creating
vehicle shortages what began with
temporary manufacturing disruptions at
the onset of the covet 19 pandemic has
led to a series of supply breakdowns
across multiple industries in 2021
specifically demand is now high for a
variety of goods that use chips and this
gap in supply and demand has become
known as the global chip shortage
before we dive into the causes of the
shortage what even is a chip
also called an integrated circuit ic or
computer chip a modern chip is a network
of electronic circuits printed on and
embedded in a flat piece of silicon
silicon is a semiconductor meaning it
can carry an electrical current between
highly conductive elements like metals
and less conductive materials like
ceramics because there is not the chip
right there is different types of chips
andre burkovsky is an engineer and
senior partner at mckinsey he's an
expert on chip manufacturing and
analyzes global market trends what it
typically starts with is silicon which
is
made of out of crystals and on top of
that
you basically introduce the structures
that make out of the silicon a
particular chip being it a logic chip
that does calculations chips that do
memory operations convert voltages
images for cameras that's a lot of
different types of chips but they're
made in a similar way think of it like
thin layers placed on top of each other
in a highly precise manner just imagine
cutting and stacking thin sheets of
paper at a scale of mere billionths of a
meter your scissors basically needs to
cut in a nanometer range and the next
piece of paper you put on top of that
again in a nanometer range you have to
position it exactly correctly above
the one before
we've seen the chip shortage hit many
industries from consumer electronics to
cars to computer parts in a nutshell
demand for products with chips has risen
since the start of the pandemic and chip
manufacturers have been struggling to
meet this demand the result customers
that can't get the products they want
either have to wait or pay more these
buyers have waited hours for a chance to
buy a computer component called a gpu
they're harder to get because of the
shortage
my stuff wants it to play fortnite that
it sells out as soon as it comes out but
i'm just waiting to see if it's there
early mornings and late nights that's
that's the sacrifices that most people
here is willing to make that should tell
you everything you need to know about
the shortages gpus or graphics
processing units are computer components
that render visuals they are great for
gaming and solving complex computations
they also incorporate sophisticated
chips to perform these tasks you would
think increased demand would lead
manufacturers to start up more factories
well it's not that easy either the
factories where tips are manufactured
can take years and billions of dollars
to build it's not about the construction
cost that much that is typically less
than 20 percent but the semiconductor
tools that you need to manufacture these
chips these are the ones that that
account for 80
plus of the cost you could build a much
smaller factory actually but it would
not be financially basically viable
further complicating things a single
company tsmc makes roughly a quarter of
the world's chips and manufacturers from
two asian countries south korea and
taiwan make the majority of chips but
disruptions in one region or with just
one manufacturer can impact thousands of
products it is a real global industry
nobody did think a lot about like for
example having something you know based
in the u.s to produce only for the u.s
and then the pandemic came we needed
another laptop we needed another camera
a microphone the demand for
semiconductors actually almost doubled
within one year so there was a shift in
what we buy increasing demand for some
products but beyond just chips we're
seeing shipping and supply chain issues
in everything from lumber to metals like
steel and aluminum and shipping
internationally now takes longer and has
become more expensive since 2020 and
this intensified after a massive
blockage in the suez canal in march was
followed by many other port backups as
of october 2021 there were more than 100
shipping containers off the california
coast just waiting in line to be
offloaded and in the u.s there's a
shortage of truck drivers at the moment
further aggravating the problem at the
ports so is there an end in sight
fortunately we're already seeing some
improvements what you can do in the
short term is just try to really really
optimize your operations to just get
more output other solutions are
prioritizing chips based on demand and
altering product designs to use the
available chips but burkovsky believes
more production facilities will be
needed in the future artificial
intelligence needs semiconductors right
smart things i would call it the decade
of semiconductors is now in front of us
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