| General > General Technical Chat |
| What's actually "chip shortage"? |
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| nardev:
So many interesting facts and opinions but it looks like my "theory" confused you. It's more speculation and in the domain of political economy :) <So, my theory is that all the information about chip shortage is probably partially true but at the same time protectionism propaganda in order to motivate and shift manufacturing capabilities from China "back to USA/EU"? Does anyone else see it that way?> |
| madires:
I think the national investment programs for semiconductors are a reaction to the current mess of outsourcing, just-in-time production done wrong and Chinese competition (some manufacturers are supported by subsidies). The chip shortage is real and not just propaganda. |
| SilverSolder:
--- Quote from: nardev on June 10, 2021, 01:59:47 pm ---So many interesting facts and opinions but it looks like my "theory" confused you. It's more speculation and in the domain of political economy :) <So, my theory is that all the information about chip shortage is probably partially true but at the same time protectionism propaganda in order to motivate and shift manufacturing capabilities from China "back to USA/EU"? Does anyone else see it that way?> --- End quote --- I think it was answered above, if you put the jigsaw pieces together. The fundamental problem is that the industry is geared to run at near 100% capacity even during normal, sunny days - and this means there is no spare capacity to cope with any kind of demand peak. Your point about protectionism is valid: the protectionists, in their misguided zeal, have the effect of reducing flexibility and caused unusual orders to be placed (e.g. Huawei et al), making an already bad situation even worse. But they didn't cause the crisis on their own - they just make it worse, in that people can't as easily just sit down around a conference table and come up with good solutions. |
| CatalinaWOW:
Nardev, you are saying that some politicians are using the "crisis" for their own political gains. That is kind of like saying water is wet. I personally agree, it is absolutely happening. But I don't think it is cause or even a very large part of what is going on. |
| Tomorokoshi:
Back in the old days, like 2019, the shortage problem was ceramic capacitors. If I recall one strategy was to replace 0.1 uF with 0.068 uF or other such tricks. The issues with silicon components plays out as described above: a few very large fabs, many design firms trying to schedule into those fabs, and a wildly gyrating market. The MBA's made the same (wrong) decision that engineering managers often fall into: trying to schedule production to 100%. There is no margin or slack; the supply network is too long and too brittle to elegantly balance inductive supply with capacitive demand. Step responses like Covid throw the system into oscillation. I advocate (which of course never gets implemented) that engineering resources shouldn't be scheduled to more than 80%, and should really be more like 70% but that tends to get rejected as silly. Without that extra and realistic margin built in, the asynchronous events like redesign for part substitution breaks the schedule all the way out. The extra margin also allows for a more refined design. |
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