[HN Gopher] TSMC sees chip shortage lasting into 2022
___________________________________________________________________
TSMC sees chip shortage lasting into 2022
Author : tosh
Score : 226 points
Date : 2021-04-15 16:35 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| seiferteric wrote:
| Damn, at this point I might just wait until zen 4 stuff comes out
| before replacing my current desktop (circa 2012) since it still
| seems fine for most stuff.
| kelp wrote:
| Ryzen 5 5600x and Ryzen 7 5800x prices / stock have about
| equalized lately. So they are pretty easy to find at MSRP. You
| can currently get a Ryzen 7 5800x from many major retails for
| MSRP. The Ryzen 9 5900x and 5950x are harder to get.
|
| It's GPUs that are nearly impossible to get right now. I've
| been trying for weeks to get one for a friend. I'm intently
| watching the stock notification Discords. There are frequent
| restocks, but they seem to sell out in seconds.
| throwastrike wrote:
| I strongly believe this is going to allow Intel to make a
| dramatic comeback. It will buy them enough time to catch up while
| everyone is stuck buying Intel still as a result of supply
| constraint.
| cardy31 wrote:
| Intel seems to be multiple years behind at this point. They
| might make a bit of a comeback, but it would have to be a huge
| process size shrink to be competitive. Based on their previous
| years, I doubt that an extra year will help that much.
| dannyw wrote:
| Intel is shipping 10nm superfin (I'm typing this on a Tiger
| Lake NUC). Density wise, this is comparable to TSMC 7nm (used
| by AMD).
| adrian_b wrote:
| While Intel 10 nm SuperFin might be comparable in density
| with TSMC 7 nm, it definitely is much worse for the yields
| of chips with large area.
|
| Six years ago, in 2015, Intel had no problems to introduce
| the smaller Skylake U and the larger Skylake H at the same
| time.
|
| Now, Intel needs more than half of year to increase the
| yields of 10 nm SuperFin enough to be able to introduce the
| larger Tiger Lake H after the smaller Tiger Lake U
| introduced last year.
|
| This happens even if now the area difference between Tiger
| Lake H and Tiger Lake U is not so great as in the previous
| generations, because a good part of the twice larger CPU is
| compensated by the 3 times smaller GPU.
|
| On the other hand, the previous variant of the Intel 10 nm
| process (non-SuperFin), which is still used for Ice Lake
| Server, has much worse electrical properties than the TSMC
| 7 nm, because at the same number of active cores and the
| same power consumption AMD Epyc 7xx3 can have a clock
| frequency up to 50% higher.
|
| Moreover, the similar density of the Intel process means
| absolutely nothing when the competition using the TSMC
| process can deliver a more than 3 times greater L3 cache
| memory at the same price and in the same package size.
|
| The density does not have any importance if you cannot
| deliver more transistors in a given package, because you
| cannot manufacture large enough chips and because you have
| been unable to predict that you will never be able to
| manufacture large enough chips, so that you should have
| designed from the beginning your product as multi-chip.
| axaxs wrote:
| Behind on...what? Against the latest and greatest Apple or
| AMD? Maybe. I'd probably put it at a generation at most.
|
| That aside, there's a -huge- market for chips that aren't the
| latest and greatest. Intel expanding into that, which if I
| read right is what they're doing, could be a huge moneymaker.
| ajross wrote:
| That seems unlikely, for the same reason that TSMC isn't able
| to put Intel down permanently. We're reaching the end of
| silicon scaling. Transistor densities might continue to rise
| with 3D techniques, etc... but the actual logic is reaching
| physical limits. So transistors per price and per power are
| hitting walls.
|
| TSMC pulled ahead, but they don't have a lot of runway to pull
| _far_ ahead. Likewise Intel can catch up, but they can 't
| retake the kind of lead they had a decade ago.
|
| Semiconductors are turning into commodities, basically.
| throwastrike wrote:
| That's an interesting take. I feel the chip space is driven
| by marketing a bit too much. At the data center level I don't
| believe the performance difference is as dramatic in
| practical terms. For the most part, you're not missing out
| that much by going Intel unless you are working on something
| time critical.
| dvdkon wrote:
| If we're talking AMD vs Intel, then the biggest difference
| I see is cost (when the CPUs are in stock, anyway). Intel's
| performance is fine, but the CPUs can cost multiple times
| that of the competition. With Xeon, a small municipality
| would never be able to say "You know what? Just go with the
| 32-core CPU, it's not that much more."
| chasil wrote:
| I would prefer a 2-core CPU, when Oracle Enterprise
| Databases run around $24k/core after discount, and SQL
| Server Enterprise runs around $15k/core.
|
| From single-core performance and low core count, Intel
| appears to be the better choice.
| doikor wrote:
| > We're reaching the end of silicon scaling.
|
| For the next 2 shrinks at least TSMC disagrees.
|
| According to roadmap of TSMC they are roling out 3nm risk
| production this year and they built a new research lab for
| 2nm last year and already picked a site for the new 2nm fab
| (Hsinchu, Taiwan). Beyond that I don't think anyone has any
| real plans (yet).
| tedunangst wrote:
| I think the question is if anyone is going to refuse a 5nm
| product because 3nm is available.
| Miraste wrote:
| Maybe not, but they might start refusing 14nm products.
| codezero wrote:
| A valuable and strategic commodity I'd add.
| agloeregrets wrote:
| Not really, the limits you see from TSMC here are for the
| lesser of the important chip sales. Apple's orders that will
| put a hurting on Intel in the market and mindshare are still
| good. So Maybe Intel may sell more units in a small way by the
| M1X will still hurt Intel's lead by just existing.
|
| Did I mention that Intel Xe uses TSMC as well?
| narrator wrote:
| Intel has been trying to get their 5nm fab process right for
| sometime now. So far, they have not been able to make it work.
| This is not software. It's physics. It's chemistry. It's
| material science. These are very hard problems to solve and
| there's currently only one company that can do it and their
| machines cost $200 million dollars and have a several year
| backlog of orders.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > there's currently only one company that can do it and their
| machines cost $200 million dollars and have a several year
| backlog of orders.
|
| ASML has a market cap of 223 billion $, and their stock value
| has doubled in a year. That's a _lot_ of growth...
| freedomben wrote:
| anecdotally two friends of mine wanted AMD but bought Intel
| because of availability. You may be right.
| throwastrike wrote:
| I could get away with using my old 2013 Macbook Pro for 90%
| of my computing needs. I could run the rest in the cloud.
| Sure I have the latest AMD and I know the headline numbers
| but I wouldn't be able to tell you that consumer chips
| improved all that much in the past few years purely from a
| practical pov.
| totalZero wrote:
| Same here, but that last 10% of computing needs can
| complicate things.
|
| Try running two 4k external monitors on a Haswell MBP.
|
| They look about the same, but a Haswell MBP13 (Late 2013)
| is very much less capable than an Ice Lake MBP13 (2020).
| Not all of that difference is attributable to the CPU I
| suppose, but the graphics and thermal throttling under load
| certainly are.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Even 2019 i9 MBP can't do that without extreme
| overheating and throttling, measured with pmset -g
| thermlog.
| ngngngng wrote:
| That's just because no one wants Intel at the moment.
| tedunangst wrote:
| Intel still gets paid even if the people buying their CPUs
| don't want them.
| Black101 wrote:
| that might help the global warming...
| Thorentis wrote:
| Imagine if we get to the point that critical medical or
| infrastructure devices cannot be produced because all the chips
| were taken up by Bitcoin miners wanting to speculate on a fake
| currency bubble. Our own greed will be our destruction.
| varispeed wrote:
| I found that the chips for a project that I am working on are no
| longer available and I got the lead time of 13 months, without
| guarantee. It essentially means that I have to redesign the
| project using different part which may take me few months and I
| have no guarantee the other chip I choose will be available. The
| problem is, however, that I can see those chips available in
| their thousands on aliexpress and similar sites for 10x the
| price. I also read on forums that Chinese entrepreneurs buy all
| the chips and stockpile them. Is this some new kind of war?
| thorwasdfasdf wrote:
| according to one news outlet, I heard, the chinese have a long
| history of double ordering chips. Now, the strategy final pays
| off, as they can continue development. Most businesses don't
| double order because of the additional costs, now they're
| hurting more.
| coliveira wrote:
| > Is this some new kind of war?
|
| No, this is called capitalism! Everyone should be proud.
| Guthur wrote:
| You show a distinct lack of understanding of what capitalism
| is.
|
| I can very easily hoard goods in a controlled centralised
| economy as well, the only major downside is the governmnent
| will likely throw me in some Gulag if they caught me.
|
| It's actually market forces, nothing whatsoever to do with
| capital.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| One of the most common themes of propaganda in communist
| Poland was how speculants are responsible for all
| shortages.
| scruffyherder wrote:
| North Korea has all the chips you need comrade
| tkinom wrote:
| High tech version of "toilet paper hoarding"
| swiley wrote:
| The difference here is that people are used to not being able
| to buy chips at costco/wallmart so you might have a chance at
| selling your stock.
| throwaway4good wrote:
| Yeah. It is called the US-China tech war.
| pojzon wrote:
| Its not war, just a good way to make a lot of money now. You
| buy cheap and sell absurdly high (10-20x the price). People
| still buy because they have no other option.
| pvarangot wrote:
| Old-new stock and "unofficial" chips and parts has been a thing
| for like ever. Now I hear of more "mainstream" projects having
| to tap into that market but it has always been there.
| temp667 wrote:
| China def is stockpiling more chips I think. The Huawei
| situation really brought home to china how the US or others
| could basically try and cut them off and they are doing a lot
| of things to reduce that potentially impact (all out on chip
| mfg, chip orders etc) so having stock may be of benefit to them
| in that environment.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Not stockpiling, a lot of people just do actual hoarding, and
| speculation.
|
| Buying out all stocks of some rare MCU which only has
| probably few million units on the market at any given time at
| $0.1 just to resell for a few dollars later is quite real
| given the unprecedented squeeze.
|
| How much would a car company pay for a rare, out of stock
| chip which is the only thing missing in a car worth $100k?
|
| There is murmur in Chinese BBSes frequented by industry
| insiders about distributors intentionally either stuffing
| their part stock counts, or diminish them to play the price.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| So Martin Shkreli, but instead of pharma, chips.
|
| And designing products around perceived availability that
| doesn't actually exist.
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| Just-in-time manufacturing is pre-medidated on the idea
| that whatever you need is available immediately for a
| fair price.
|
| I think we'll see some of this in the future where a
| company's only purpose may be to hedge on bets on what
| will be unavailable in the near future for "a fair price"
| neonological wrote:
| After China restricted other companies from entering their
| own market then the only fair thing to do is to restrict
| Chinas' access to other markets.
|
| I'm not a trump supporter but he did the right thing on this
| front.
| echelon wrote:
| It's a totally fair game.
|
| > I'm not a trump supporter but he did the right thing on
| this front.
|
| It's a shame you have to admit that. I'm a liberal and
| think we should be putting a hard squeeze on unilateral
| trade. This policy makes sense for the US and other
| countries regardless of your party.
|
| You can see that the US is starting to ramp up hard core.
| With international navies now sailing into the South China
| sea and a deafening rise of anti-CCP news and (admittedly)
| some propaganda, player two has finally entered the game.
|
| I live near an air force base and over the last few weeks
| have seen (and definitely heard!) an almost daily fighter
| jet exercise. This hasn't happened in years.
|
| China is going to be in a very tough spot soon.
| neonological wrote:
| >It's a shame you have to admit that. I'm a liberal and
| think we should be putting a hard squeeze on unilateral
| trade. This policy makes sense for the US and other
| countries regardless of your party.
|
| People like to join teams. So if I have an opinion that's
| not part of the "team" or part of the "other" team then
| people like to attack those opinions. That's why I make
| sure I say something along the lines of "Hey, I'm not on
| the other team, but I have a different opinion."
| nickff wrote:
| Those AliExpress chips may not be genuine. Buying from
| unauthorized distributors has always been risky, and some
| companies (especially Chinese ones) have been know to stamp
| blank or generic parts with whatever part number you're looking
| for. The really tricky vendors will put a few (10-50) genuine
| parts at the beginning and end of a reel (to pass validation
| testing), with defective or fake ones in between. Non-genuine
| parts may also be lower-spec versions of what they are labelled
| as (like a slower microcontroller or a higher offset op-amp).
| Syonyk wrote:
| For a fun set of reads on this ("Label the chips as what the
| buyer wants regardless of what they actually are") from a
| decade ago, Sparkfun got some "fake" ATMega 328p chips in
| that, in fact, were nothing remotely resembling an ATMega
| 328p.
|
| In the words of someone after they'd puzzled out the puzzle,
| "...so it looks like that die in the picture is pre-release
| engineering material. Where the hell did you find that?"
|
| https://www.sparkfun.com/news/350
|
| https://www.sparkfun.com/news/364
|
| https://www.sparkfun.com/news/384
|
| https://www.sparkfun.com/news/395
| Scoundreller wrote:
| A proper scale should be able to detect weak effort fraud
| like this.
| Syonyk wrote:
| A proper scale can detect all sorts of weak effort fraud.
|
| Years back, I talked to someone who had done some
| analysis on some of the "fake silver/gold" bars floating
| around places (I think they were common on Silk Road for
| a while?). Apparently some of the people faking metal
| bars didn't actually bother learning what a "Troy Ounce"
| was.
|
| There was a "10 oz" bar that was 10 ounces - 283.5 grams.
| Except, in metals, "oz" means Troy Ounce - so it should
| have been 311 grams. You could literally feel that it was
| light if you were used to dealing with metals.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| I suspect it wasn't really trying to defraud people who
| know what a Troy Ounce is. I'd find it believable if
| people thought fake bars at 311g were frauds for not
| weighing 10oz.
| routerl wrote:
| This was a great read, thanks!
| jandrese wrote:
| I'm guessing it's a sample run and the company realized
| there was a bug in the silicon and told the fab to destroy
| the rest of the samples. Instead someone at the fab set
| them aside for the future when they need some raw material
| to scam people with.
|
| I find it strange that whoever decided to do this kept the
| correct datecode on the packaging. Presumably they didn't
| label them as ATMega 328s until the order came in, it would
| have been trivial to change the datecode to something
| reasonable for that chip.
| swiley wrote:
| This is why buying chips off amazon isn't always a great
| idea.
| La1n wrote:
| >entrepreneurs buy all the chips and stockpile them. Is this
| some new kind of war?
|
| No, that's capitalism.
| [deleted]
| foobarian wrote:
| Heh. Let me tell you about how I tried to buy a new Nvidia RTX
| 3090...
| polskibus wrote:
| Why doesn't TSMC just raise prices 100% or so ? Surely everyone
| would just have to pay up?
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Semi orders are made years in advance with pricing fixed in the
| contract.
| birktj wrote:
| Question: does the chip shortage only apply to the smallest
| process sizes? That is what I would assume, but with the talk
| about problems for car manufactures having supply issues it would
| seem the shortage extends to larger process sizes as well? (Do
| they really need the newest snapdragon processor in a modern
| car?)
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I wonder if auto has been moving to smaller processes just for
| better efficiency.
| blihp wrote:
| It's across the board. Makers of small scale microcontroller
| projects/kits (whose chips typically use 28nm and larger
| process nodes) are reporting problems getting parts. Apparently
| some of the parts the autos need are >100nm.
|
| I suspect that this problem started with the Huwai sanctions
| causing lots of Chinese companies to start panic buying
| inventory not knowing of they're going to be the next hit with
| sanctions. Add to that the demand shifts caused by the
| pandemic. Then throw in other companies realizing how
| vulnerable they are (and therefore trying to add to their own
| inventories) and some speculators and it makes for a real mess.
| mmoskal wrote:
| COVID induced demands for consumer electronics, while
| constraining supply of ICs. There's lots of low-end chips (not
| the CPU or GPU, but say power controllers, etc) going into
| laptops and peripherals (mice, keyboard, etc.).
|
| Hence the squeeze all around.
|
| On top some distributors are selling whatever they have left at
| whatever market is willing to pay, which may mean 100x the
| usual price...
| high_priest wrote:
| Looking at the amount of driver assists and video analysis
| solutions packed onto modern cars, maybe?
| agloeregrets wrote:
| Other way around. Small process sizes have already been called
| for a long time ago so no changes were made in the demand. For
| example, TSMC's 5nm process was bought out by Apple two years
| ago. It's the more JIT processes with shorter order lead that
| have impacts.
|
| Apple will be able to get things like the M1X with no problem
| but they will have trouble getting things like microprocessors
| used for power management.
| baybal2 wrote:
| No, it's actually much worse for legacy processes, discretes,
| and some components.
|
| It's stuff that was usually made on non-300mm fabs, and 130nm+
| nodes.
| stefan_ wrote:
| Everything is short in supply. Part of that is because analog
| chips generally use older processes anyway and part of it is
| that old fabs have a very long tail of selling older process
| size chips. I think right now the best bang for your buck is
| 40nm.
| coliveira wrote:
| This is the result of something called just-in-time
| manufacturing. The geniuses who created this method of
| manufacturing always thought that there would be no interruption
| of supply chains, and that we could forever produce only what we
| could consume at the moment.
| dyingkneepad wrote:
| I feel like this comment is kinda like blaming the inventors of
| the Knife for the people who were stabbed. JIT was an amazing
| invention and a progress to mankind.
| digikata wrote:
| Toyota was one of the creators of Just in Time manufacturing,
| and they planned for this particular supply chain interruption.
|
| https://jalopnik.com/toyota-prepared-for-the-chip-shortage-y...
| a9h74j wrote:
| Kanban is not incompatible with queuing theory.
| reader_mode wrote:
| Reminds me of a joke - if economist designed humans instead of
| having two kidneys we would share one between five people.
| scruffyherder wrote:
| And I can make a baby in 1 month with 10 women.
| KingMachiavelli wrote:
| If you look at the numbers 50% of TSMC's revenue is made up by
| the 5nm and 7nm as of 2021. And just one company, Apple, makes up
| 25% of TSMC's revenue. While the M1 is a great chip - it also
| just launched and Apple has been one fourth of TSMC's revenue for
| years. This means that around 40 to 50% of the top performance
| nodes suitable for general purpose use in data centers,
| workstations, etc. is being used for mobile devices -> mostly
| phones and tablets.
|
| On one hand I have to thank Apple for pushing semiconducter
| development and making ARM a real x86 replacement outside the DC.
| However, it seems really wasteful and like a mis-allocation of
| resources to put the top performing silicon in devices that don't
| really need it. Even the M1 architecture is handicapped by Apple
| itself. Besides the most obnoxious use of M1 Mac mini's in DC
| basically for the sole purpose of iOS and macOS app development,
| the CPUs are mostly used in consumer devices. Their main purpose
| for use in consumer devices? To eliminate the need for a fan and
| to improve battery life. Both of these things are great but also
| just not high on the list of problems humanity needs to solve.
|
| What I am trying to say is that, for the last few decades, it at
| least seemed like 'real' work drove semiconductor development.
| From cloud giants to a local companies data center, performance
| and power efficiency were what drove and purchased the bleeding
| edge CPU/GPUs (I suppose in some ways GPUs were driven by
| consumers/entertainment reasons). Now it seems like luxury
| products are taking on that role.
|
| I call these mobile iOS/Android products luxury products because
| outside of novelty purposes no one is really producing movies or
| something of value beyond a word document on these devices.
| Traditional laptops and desktops "won" in a way for the same
| reason that the M1 processor exists; mobile operating systems
| still have never matured to replace then so instead even Apple is
| bringing mobile software _back_ to the traditional computer.
|
| The most worrying aspect of this development of course is how
| locked down most of these devices are. iOS devices are of course
| in a walled garden and even macOS has more & more restrictions. I
| can easily imagine a day where consumer level electronics are
| completely locked down and the only way to get a open/free
| platform is to buy server hardware - if that is even possible.
| Server hardware is also moving to ARM and while not locked down
| in a software or hardware way it is locked down in the sense that
| only a few companies can buy it or at least no one so far is
| interested in selling single digit volumes of ARM servers. The
| days of open computing for the general person certainly seem
| numbered.
| zxcero wrote:
| > However, it seems really wasteful and like a mis-allocation
| of resources to put the top performing silicon in devices that
| don't really need it
|
| Semiconductor research requires a lot of capital. If Apple is
| providing that upfront capital at a higher rate, then that's
| great for TMSC. More capital for spearheading development. And
| with better and better yield at smaller node sizes, it'll
| trinkle down. 2 years later 5nm would become common place and
| can be used to produce chips for servers. It's just the
| question between now and a couple years later.
|
| > Both of these things are great but also just not high on the
| list of problems humanity needs to solve.
|
| At the end of the day, it's the market that determines
| innovation and R&D. More money for a specific product results
| in more money spent in researching and development. It's about
| what people need rather it's about what people want. Also not
| having a fan and improved battery life means less ewaste,
| smaller batteries and less electricity use.
|
| > What I am trying to say is that, for the last few decades, it
| at least seemed like 'real' work drove semiconductor
| development.
|
| First it was military spending that funded CPU development.
| Later on, it was enterprise because of companies had money. Now
| with cheaper and faster hardware, more and more people are able
| to get their hands on a PC. You can watch educational videos
| online. Talk to thousands of people or connect with relatives.
| You can do online webinars or shows. Heck, you can even learn
| languages on apps on your phone. In the end, mobile phones are
| a tool. They can be beneficial or detrimental on the use.
|
| > mobile operating systems still have never matured to replace
| then so instead even Apple is bringing mobile software back to
| the traditional computer.
|
| It's about centralizing software development between platforms.
| It's cheaper and easier to develop one software OS across
| platforms than to have MacOS and iOS separate. This might mean
| that later on your Ipad can run VScode.
|
| > I can easily imagine a day where consumer level electronics
| are completely locked down and the only way to get a open/free
| platform is to buy server hardware - if that is even possible.
|
| Its the opposite. The prices for all these microprocessors have
| been getting lower and lower while becoming exceeding more
| powerful. You can buy an integrated microcontroller with
| bluetooth and wifi modules for <$10. In fact, open computing
| has expanded due to cheaper cost to PCs and faster hardware.
| More people can afford to do software and hardware development.
| There's so many resources nowadays for open source development
| or even hobbyist tinkering of hardware. This is one of the best
| times you can be in for open computing.
| throwaway4good wrote:
| I thought this article about purchases of chip manufacturing
| equipment was very interesting:
|
| https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3129611/us-chi...
|
| US-China tech war: China becomes world's top semiconductor
| equipment market as Beijing pushes local chip industry
|
| Mainland China topping the list for the first time ever. South
| Korea is investing a lot more than usual. Taiwan is stable. The
| US is down.
|
| Will be very interesting how the chip situation will look on the
| other side of the current shortage. The shortage is all over, not
| just for high end processes. The high end processes will probably
| still be done by SK, Taiwan and the US but a lot of the lower end
| will go to China.
| baybal2 wrote:
| If anybody been watching the second hand semi equipment market,
| all kinds of opportunistic players from China been scouring the
| market clean for last 5 years.
|
| One of those opportunistic players hoping on becoming a n-th
| tier fab player is for example Galanz -- a kitchenware company:
| https://twitter.com/ogawa_tter/status/1310852850033946624
|
| Though, there is notion that those are just manoeuvres to get
| giant tax subsidies from the state. Semiconductor companies in
| China pay near no tax, even if they have 1 wafer per month
| fabs.
| throwaway4good wrote:
| Well. Nokia started with rubber boots.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| Nintendo playing cards!
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Their rubber venture is still alive and well and makes good
| studded winter tires for bicycles
| Black101 wrote:
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/04/intel-nvidia-tsmc-ex...
| ArkanExplorer wrote:
| How much fab capacity is indirectly dedicated towards Crypto
| mining?
|
| Could blocking the fiat inroads, and causing a price fall, be a
| solution to this chip shortage?
| jagger27 wrote:
| It's direct competition. Nvidia sells normal graphics card
| chips directly to miners.
| PhantomGremlin wrote:
| That's an interesting question. Crypto mining wants to do more
| and more cycles, faster and faster, so of course they need
| chips from the newest processes.
|
| But in reality I don't think "blocking" is possible now. That
| ship has sailed (feel free to use your own cliche here). There
| are now exchange listed companies, eg Coinbase, that deal in
| crypto. There are mutual funds that deal in crypto. Tesla owns
| a bunch of crypto :)
|
| A lot of older ICs, eg automotive, don't need leading edge
| fabs, and those other fabs also are seeing record demand.
| ArkanExplorer wrote:
| But what does eg. Germany, Korea, Japan have to gain from
| Crypto activity?
|
| What does humanity have to gain generally, with an increasing
| share of our energy and chip manufacturing output going
| towards an essentially pointless activity?
|
| Why not more individual action, like India has taken?
|
| Much of the wealth seems to be funneled into the USA, where
| many of the earliest entrants and major Crypto traders are
| located.
| kelp wrote:
| It seems to be a net negative to society to me. One of
| those cases where a small group gets rich, while everyone
| else pays the externalities.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Miners buy at cost parity with coin costs.
|
| Even at the current ridiculous price of crypto, they can't
| afford latest nodes. And TSMC make them pay cash because they
| were previously burned by few mining chip makers going bust
| after their bet on coin prices didn't pay put.
|
| But only underlines how chipmaking is the next most lucrative
| thing after, effectively, printing money.
| throwaway4good wrote:
| TSMC lumps crypto into their HPC segment which is rising. How
| much of it is crypto is unclear. Bitmain manufactures their
| mining equipment on the latest TSMC process.
| xwdv wrote:
| What if chip shortage just became the new normal? Any
| alternatives?
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| That's a fantastic question! Here's my hot take:
|
| - Price increases on all products that require chips.
|
| - Right-to-repair laws make some headway, as the cost of repair
| becomes more competitive with the cost of replacement.
|
| - Commercial software developers shift their focus a little
| more towards program efficiency, at the cost of slower feature
| development and/or higher code complexity.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Kind of : http://collapseos.org/
| j_walter wrote:
| https://wccftech.com/tsmc-plant-hit-by-power-outage-millions...
|
| This certainly won't help. Just like the weeks that Samsung's
| fabs were down in Texas after the storms in February...it doesn't
| take much to disrupt a facility for weeks.
| simonh wrote:
| So this seems to be about increased demand for high end
| components driven by increased IT equipment purchases during the
| lockdown as people depend on this stuff more. That's the
| implication from the article.
|
| Meanwhile I'm also reading about chip shortages affecting car
| manufacturers, and possibly some other industries. The dynamic
| there seems to be that car makers (and possibly others) cut
| orders drastically early in the lockdown, which means component
| makers shut down manufacturing capacity and it's taking a long
| time to ramp it up and also clear the backlog of orders as demand
| came back earlier than expected.
|
| So this seems to be two completely different effects going on. I
| know very little about these industries, but I wouldn't be
| surprised if there's a meeting of these effects in the middle.
| High end devices often have some lower end components (peripheral
| and glue logic on desktop motherboards for example) in addition
| to the potentially pricier main CPU.
|
| Is that the story?
| ksec wrote:
| So to _over simplify_.
|
| 1. Car Manufactures canceled their order (X) for 6 months.
|
| 2. Fab sold those capacity to others
|
| 3. Demand for All electronics increases because of WFH ( and
| possibly bitcoin )
|
| 4. Demand for Car actually _raised_ during COVID.
|
| 5. Now Car Manufacture want X, their original order, another X
| for their next 6 months, as well as 0.5X where 0.5 was the
| increase in demand. So total 2.5X
|
| 2.5X increase in order to catch up with their production All
| while other electronics such as iPhone 5G, Tablet, PC are
| selling record number in recent years.
|
| It also doesn't help when Samsung's yield are failing yet
| _again_
|
| Now let's take this even further. Apple is predicted to sell
| record number of iPhone, Mac, and iPad. TSMC will do
| preferential treatment to all orders relating to Apple with
| Apple courting their suppliers. So that uses up those bigger
| nodes as well. You end up having industry fighting for whatever
| that is left.
|
| And just like any product or commodities, you have people
| hoarding them for profits. It is the same with PS5, Switch,
| Graphics Card or any other with limited quantities and high
| demand. This will attract interest to trade them and make
| money. Which add even more strain to supply chain.
|
| From a Supplier perspective, all of a sudden you are looking at
| a market with seemingly _unlimited_ demand and you have limited
| supply. This scenario is similar to what happened with DRAM and
| NAND in 2015 - 2019. Although the cause is different.
| cogman10 wrote:
| A couple of other things that happened.
|
| Intel has been struggling to shrink their dies, so they went
| to TSMC for some of their chip production.
|
| Apple ditched intel with their latest macbooks (with the M1),
| which also requires more TSMC capacity.
| skohan wrote:
| From what I understand, Intel's announcement that they
| would use TSMC was basically hot air. TSMC's capacity was
| already tapped, and they have little incentive to use it
| for a competitor when it's been planned for other customers
| since years back.
| officeplant wrote:
| IIRC, Intel only planned on using TSMC to produce some of
| their low cost celeron chips.
| girvo wrote:
| Aren't they using them for their upcoming dGPU
| production?)
|
| https://www.techpowerup.com/277134/intel-xe-hpg-to-be-
| built-...
| Guthur wrote:
| Not to mention AMD moved from mostly using Globalfoundries
| to using TSMC for most of their new CPU/GPU including
| consoles. And AMD have had quite the resurgence over the
| last 5 years in terms of sales.
|
| It's definitely a confluence of demand scenarios which
| would have been difficult to plan for at the best of times
| and then there was the overall disruption to supply chains
| and long term planning that Covid would have presented.
| jaflo wrote:
| I am not really familiar with the industry, why will TSMC
| give preferential treatment to Apple orders?
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Who were those others in point 2)? That's the question.
|
| Either they would want the capacity either way, or it's some
| kind of customer induced by temporarily reduced prices, so
| price sensitive.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| I think the focus on automotive manufacturers has been
| exaggerated. Automotive orders are definitely a contributing
| factor, but the popular narrative is putting too much
| emphasis on a single industry.
|
| The reality is, like you said, demand for consumer devices
| across the board has spiked. Not just cars, but phones and
| video game consoles and everything else. Cars are a part of
| it, but I don't see how we would have avoided a chip shortage
| if auto makers hadn't cancelled some previous orders and then
| resubmitted them.
| vkou wrote:
| Component makers did not shut down manufacturing capacity, they
| just re-allocated the timeshares formerly set aside for car
| manufacturers to other customers.
|
| Notice that there's no shortages of Intel CPUs, and few serious
| shortages of console gaming systems. That's where the
| manufacturing capacity went.
| doikor wrote:
| > component makers shut down manufacturing capacity and it's
| taking a long time to ramp it up
|
| Not really. The component manufacturers canceled their fab time
| contracts with fab companies as they could not afford to hold
| onto them if their customer (the car manufacturers) were not
| buying from them. And once they did that fabs just sold the
| capacity to the next buyer.
|
| So now the component manufacturers only option is to buyout the
| contract from someone else (really really expensive with
| current available capacity) or just wait until the contracts
| expire to get a chance to bid for them again. Also as fab time
| is auctioned if the shortage still continues then the fab time
| will be really expensive even then.
| jhgb wrote:
| I consider myself lucky to have upgraded a few months ago. Now I
| might not have to worry for two or three years.
| RicoElectrico wrote:
| Yeah, consolidate more [1]. What could possibly go wrong.
|
| https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/technology_node#Leading_edge_tr...
| ip26 wrote:
| As far as I know, these were not consolidation so much as
| trailing players dropping out of the race in a winner-take-all
| market.
| jagger27 wrote:
| I only hope in the next decade or so that fab tech becomes more
| commoditized so GlobalFoundries and co can get back onto the
| leading edge node.
| mlinksva wrote:
| Interesting chart. For someone who doesn't follow the industry,
| does it show current capability, or capability at the time a
| given node was cutting edge? If the latter it really does show
| a tremendous winnowing. To what extent is that winnowing
| attributable to consolidation (M&A) vs dropping out?
| taurath wrote:
| Maybe one of the ultra billionaires could make a competitor,
| but the amount of expertise built up over time in those
| companies seems insurmountable. Possible maybe, but quite a
| tall order, people would rather just build a space company it's
| easier
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Development costs of each generation rises exponentially. Would
| not be surprised if that number dropped even more around 3-2nm
| nodes.
| [deleted]
| fest wrote:
| TI DC-DC switcher IC in one of my designs cost about 0.7EUR
| before this. For current production batch we had to buy it for
| around 22EUR (qty 100).
| cm2187 wrote:
| On that topic has anyone seen any EPYC Milan CPU available
| anywhere? They were supposed to have been released last month but
| are nowhere to be seen.
| bogwog wrote:
| That link points to an "article" (it's like 3 sentences long)
| with the title
|
| > TSMC's Q1 profit up 19%, beats market estimates
|
| And says nothing about a chip shortage
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| Wasn't able to get a new dishwasher because of "no chips".
| egeozcan wrote:
| Does anyone else also feel like we're in a factorio game and
| someone realized we're not producing enough green chips after
| all?
| antisthenes wrote:
| I think it's more the case of getting to 7nm Blue Chips and
| realizing how much more costly they are in terms of
| prerequisite requirements.
| CivBase wrote:
| I know, I know! But I didn't make the bus wide enough for all
| the iron plates and copper plates I'd need to increase green
| circuit capacity. I could upgrade to blue transport belts, but
| that will take _forever!!!_
|
| How could past me have ever been foolish enough to believe I'd
| never need more than 20 lanes on the main bus? I was so _stupid
| stupid stupid!_
|
| Woah. Sorry. I blacked out for a minute there. What were we
| talking about?
| skykooler wrote:
| And the GPU shortage is because all our red circuit production
| is going to the miners.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| Speaking of, this is a blog post that I really liked on
| factorio from a functional programming perspective.
|
| https://bartoszmilewski.com/2021/02/16/functorio/
| MivLives wrote:
| If only the real world worked in Factorio timescales.
| gnulinux wrote:
| I'd like to carry thousands of chip factories in my pocket
| and create gigafactories using robots in a matter of days
| (in-game days).
| _JamesA_ wrote:
| Or M.U.L.E. for us old timers.
| grenoire wrote:
| I hope that doesn't mean that I have to build a rail line to a
| new copper sector to the north-east...
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| No, but you might have to "liberate" some oil fields in the
| mid-east...
| Groxx wrote:
| We put all our green chips in a mega-factory or two, and used
| trains to move them to the major places that needed them.
|
| Unfortunately it's a multiplayer server, and someone started
| rerouting the trains because they wanted to build more cars.
| ericwood wrote:
| I'm a bit confused; the linked article talks about TSMC's profits
| and makes no mention of the chip shortage or any predictions
| related to it. Am I missing something?
| tosh wrote:
| looks like Reuters changed the content:
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/china/tsmcs-q1-profit-rises-19...
| justinzollars wrote:
| I think the article was updated
| PhantomGremlin wrote:
| Real Men Have Fabs.
|
| The above quip came from TJ Rodgers of AMD/Cypress. It was
| popularized by Jerry Sanders, CEO of AMD.[1]
|
| There were many fabs back in the day. Now they're mostly EPA
| Superfund sites in Silicon Valley.
|
| The IC industry has done thru many many boom/bust cycles. This
| cycle could be one of the worst because fabs are so expensive
| that everyone has chosen to simply buy their chips from the few
| remaining "real men" who still have fabs.
|
| Not entirely unforeseen.
|
| [1] https://semiwiki.com/john-east/273760-real-men-have-fabs-
| jer...
| sand500 wrote:
| Bigger and bigger risk to build state of the art fabs if
| TSMC/Samsung are just going to beat you anyways
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_second_law
| Skunkleton wrote:
| Bigger and bigger risk for the likes of Apple and AMD
| depending so totally on TSMC. I don't see how this dependency
| benefits them in the long run.
| bluescrn wrote:
| Apple seems strangely unaffected by the chip shortage, with
| a seemingly-plentiful supply of new iPhones, iPads, and M1
| Macs.
| agloeregrets wrote:
| Apple is less harmed than AMD. TSMC basicly is Apple
| Taiwan, without Apple as a customer paying for R&D and
| providing custom 5nm designs to build and push R&D, TSMC
| has no business. Apple is an ensured sale with very long
| term contracts in place (> 5 years). By time any contract
| expires, Intel will have caught up.
| e9 wrote:
| On the bright side, this might encourage reuse of used/old parts
| and care about being more efficient with what we currently have,
| which is a form of innovation on its own
| christiansakai wrote:
| RIP all gamers everywhere.
| dyingkneepad wrote:
| And the gaming industry that may be holding off their PS5
| releases.
| [deleted]
| libeclipse wrote:
| That is not what the article says. Did anyone open it?
| Yoofie wrote:
| Shocking to absolutely no one. When you are the only game in town
| and everyone wants the latest greatest (high demand), shortages
| are going to last into the foreseeable future[1].
|
| [1] - Foreseeable future = multiple years on end
| dannyw wrote:
| Samsung is shipping 5nm too, it's not as good as tsmc 5nm but
| it is close.
| Black101 wrote:
| 2 sources is not much better then 1 ... we have seen 3 and 4
| sources collude in the past
| InitialLastName wrote:
| This article doesn't say what is in the title. This might be
| better:
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/15/22385240/tsmc-chip-shorta...
|
| To that point, this issue is already painful for anyone making
| electronics, and is going to hurt the small electronics
| manufacturers more (if you aren't in a position to buy a million
| parts, good luck getting any priority as things come back on
| line).
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-04-15 23:00 UTC)