Samsung Warns of Severe Chip Crunch While Delaying Key Phone (bloomberg.com) 35
Samsung Electronics warned it's grappling with the fallout from a "serious imbalance" in semiconductors globally, becoming the largest tech giant to voice concerns about chip shortages spreading beyond the automaking industry. From a report: Samsung, one of the world's largest makers of chips and consumer electronics, expects the crunch to pose a problem to its business next quarter, co-Chief Executive Officer Koh Dong-jin said during an annual shareholders meeting in Seoul. The company is also considering skipping the introduction of a new Galaxy Note -- one of its best-selling models -- this year, though Koh said that was geared toward streamlining its lineup.
Meh (Score:3)
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My Note9's due for a replacement and I skipped the last Note and Galaxy phones for the upcoming one lol.
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Probably because you're a moron and also Taiwan is going through a drought. Chip fabs use a lot of water.
https://www.theregister.com/20... [theregister.com]
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The water can be recycled. Malta has a severe lack of water and STMicro has a semiconductor manufacturing plant there. Of course that costs money and perhaps TSMC just skimped on it for the $$$.
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https://www.bbc.com/news/techn... [bbc.com]
TSMC said it needed 156,000 tonnes of water per day, even though it reuses more than 85% of it.
Re:I kind-of get a feeling that it's coordinated. (Score:5, Interesting)
The water can be recycled. Malta has a severe lack of water and STMicro has a semiconductor manufacturing plant there. Of course that costs money and perhaps TSMC just skimped on it for the $$$.
Chip manufacturers call everything a Fab, or a manufacturing plant.
The plants that etchs the actual ICs on the silicon waffers needs toons of water, the plants that test the chips and packages them in their substrates, not so much.
Since testing and packaging tend to be labour intensive, those plants tend to be in low cost of labour countries, like Malasya, Costa Rica, china. I'd wager malta too.
Meanwhile, since etching is so critical, plants that do it tend to be very close to HQ, plus places were you can get tons of good PhDs . So, most of intel etching is done in USoA (except for one fab in israel and on in china), Most of samsung's and SK hynix is done in corea (with some fabs in texas and china), most of GloFo (former AMD) is done in USoA and Germany. And most of TSMC etching (requiring lots of water) is done in Taiwan.
So, I'd wager the malta plant is the packaging type, not needing that much water.
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"Chip manufacturers call everything a Fab, or a manufacturing plant.
The plants that etchs the actual ICs on the silicon waffers needs toons of water, the plants that test the chips and packages them in their substrates, not so much."
No one in chip manufacturing calls test and packing facilities "fabs". Sometimes people get confused because old fab buildings are repurposed for test and packaging, but that doesn't make a building a fab just because it has test and packaging.
"most of intel etching is done in U
Re: I kind-of get a feeling that it's coordinated. (Score:2)
Re:I kind-of get a feeling that it's coordinated. (Score:5, Insightful)
We didn't learn from the hard drive shortages when one region of the world was flooded and we won't learn from this either (which ironically is due to a drought).
concentration of manufacturing (Score:2)
The cost of Fab plants has been growing exponentially. Doubling ever 4 years or so since the 60s. It looks like Intel might not even be able to afford to stay on the bleeding edg
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The only morons here are anyone that thought concentrating all chip production into one part of the world was a good idea 'because it's cheap'.
We didn't learn from the hard drive shortages when one region of the world was flooded and we won't learn from this either (which ironically is due to a drought).
Actualy, chip production is highly disconcentrated. The big three (Intel, Samsung and TSMC) have their ETCHING fabs (the fabs that actually make the chips, as opposed to the fabs that test and package them) in:
Intel: USoA, Israel (and one not so modern in china).
Samsung: Korea, USoA, and not so modern in china.
TSMC: TSMS Taiwan, China, USoA (Planned).
As for RAM manufacturers:
Micron: USoA
Samsung: See above.
SK Hynix: Korea
Flash:
Samsung: See above
Micron: See above
Sandisk-Toshiba: Japan
Other foundries:
GloFo: US
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Micron has plants in Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, and China. Here's a more detailed list.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Feel free to start up your own fab.
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The only morons here are anyone that thought concentrating all chip production into one part of the world was a good idea 'because it's cheap'.
Actually I think there's also morons here who think the chip production which is currently experiencing shortages is concentrated in one part of the world. The reality is manufacturing is done all over the place including lots in Texas and Utah.
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I think you hit the nail on the head, he's just a moron.
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This whole "global chip shortage" thing seems to me like a coordinated effort from "tech giants" to create an artificial crisis. I've read totally contradicting reports about shortages, and this is all just too strange. The bottom line is that I don't understand how it has "suddenly" become such a huge problem in such a massive way. "The virus" etc. all seems like weak excuses. Anyway, instead of downmodding me for expressing my opinion, I'd appreciate plausible explanations instead.
It is two things. Increased consumption of gadgets to entertain or work at home during the pandemic together with the Trump sanctions on Chinese semiconductors. Just think about it. Last year Huawei was the top smartphone vendor. Then Trump sanctioned them and now the other smartphone vendors have to fill the gap. But chip production does not turn on a dime and allocation of production can take many months while a new chip design can take two years. A new factory can take four years.
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https://asia.nikkei.com/Busine... [nikkei.com]
Huawei, which was one of the world's largest smartphone makers, relied on U.S.-made technologies to make the chips for its smartphones and tablets.
The Trump administration's policy action of prohibiting U.S. companies with sensitive information technology to transact with Huawei without first obtaining a Department of Commerce license would clearly make it hard for the Chinese maker to secure vital supplies of state-of-the-art semiconductor devices made by Taiwan Semiconduc
Re:I kind-of get a feeling that it's coordinated. (Score:5, Informative)
This whole "global chip shortage" thing seems to me like a coordinated effort from "tech giants" to create an artificial crisis.
Why does everything have to be a conspiracy? So you are proposing that these tech giants are all conspiring against you including some which are in direct competition with each other. For example, I am pretty sure Sony is not conspiring with Microsoft to deprive consumers of consoles.
I've read totally contradicting reports about shortages, and this is all just too strange.
What conflicting reports? Every report I have read has said there is a shortage of not just chips but underlying components.
The virus" etc. all seems like weak excuses.
Why is it a "weak excuse"? For months in Asia where many components are made, plants were shut down and the after effects of losing months of production are still being felt as most of the world is using just-in-time models. Right now a major problem is global shipping is still severely disrupted with passenger travel down. Trump hampered global trade by imposing tariffs which caused retaliatory tariffs. US based companies have to be very careful about if and what they source from China.
In the topic of chip fabrication alone, all Taiwan based chip foundries are dealing with a drought problem. Intel has been struggling with 10nm and now 7nm production yields for many years. TSMC is so fully booked that auto makers cannot get chips made.
All these things are happening at once. But it's a conspiracy according to you.
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Calm the fuck down. He never said they were conspiring against HIM. Why are you being so dramatic?
> Every report I have read has said there is a shortage of not just chips but underlying components.
So you try to counter anecdotal evidence with your own anecdotal evidence? You're not really good at proving your points, are you.
> TSMC is so fully booked that auto makers cannot get chips made.
Wrong. TSMC is prioritizing chips used in auto manufactur
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Calm the fuck down. He never said they were conspiring against HIM. Why are you being so dramatic?
His first fucking sentence was: "This whole "global chip shortage" thing seems to me like a coordinated effort from "tech giants" to create an artificial crisis." He literally used the words "coordinated effort" and "artificial crisis". What the fuck are you reading?
So you try to counter anecdotal evidence with your own anecdotal evidence? You're not really good at proving your points, are you.
You clearly missed that point. My anecdotal evidence is not any better than this. Both are anecdotal.
Wrong. TSMC is prioritizing chips used in auto manufacture, so no, TSMC isn't so fully booked that auto makers cannot get chips made - quite the opposite, they are putting auto manufacturers ahead of the rest:
The word you are missing is "now". "Now" TSMC is prioritizing auto makers. They did not in 2020. However auto makers do not magically receive t
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>tech giants are all conspiring against you
And your first fucking sentence was calling him out for feeling specifically personally targeted by a conspiracy. You used the word "you", as in you twisted his words to make it seem lik
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And your first fucking sentence was calling him out for feeling specifically personally targeted by a conspiracy.
The point which you miss again is there is no conspiracy against him as a fucking consumer which is what he and both are talking about. The only person thinks I am talking about him personally seems to be you.
And we can blame auto makers for not being prepared.
I have not said either way whether we should or should not blame the automakers. My point again is there is a chip shortage. Right now auto makers worldwide are suffering from not getting enough chips, but they are not the only industry.
Other companies aren't having such problems because they did prepare.
Have you tried to order a video card lately? How about about a PS5
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What conflicting reports?
I'm willing to bet he thinks chips are chips. And that there's one fab in China and one in Taiwan that manufacturers everything from sub 15nm to the 400nm+ range rather than realising that fabs are designed to manufacture a specific process. If that's the case I'm sure he's read conflicting reports as not all fab sizes are facing equal shortages.
Sort of, but not in the way you mean... (Score:2)
What has happened is Apple has switched from buying Intel silicon, fabbed in Intel's own plants, to using silicon of it's own design.
To get this fabbed, it needs to buy wafer starts from foundries like TMSC, Samsung and GF. These places are pretty much at capacity already, so a new player entering the market causes a bit of distortion.
Supply of fab capacity is very inelastic (fabs take years to build), so as demand rises, so do prices.
Add in the fact that this new player has the financial muscle to out-bid
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Chip churn (Score:2)
If they make it easier to repair devices, then we don't have to buy a new one every 3 years. However, that hurts their sales. The disposable-to-landfill mentality has to end.
Think of the volume of plastic and shit dumped into landfill when a refrigerator cannot be repaired. It's a damned shame.
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I'd guestimate roughly half buy new ones to be in style, and half find the repairs too expensive or taking too long to justify for something that is known to have a short shelf-life to begin with. It's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you expect it not to last much longer then you are more likely to skip repairs to keep it going.
For example, if something is at year 4 and expected to typically last 5 years, then repairs at year 4 wil
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Refrigerators are a poor case for repair vs recycling (or disposal in landfills which can be mined in future if it's worth it) as their efficiency improves considerably with new designs. Troubleshooting and repair is not free (or cheap or I'd be doing my own) while wear parts (compressors etc) are expensive.
Most recycling programs take appliances and the best way to disassemble a fridge or freezer is shredding (as with automobiles etc) and separation.
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Is the energy efficiency gains of the new designs greater than the waste of a large volume of material (the fridge)? They've mostly plateaued, from what I've heard.
If the parts were standardized and more plug-and-play, they could be easier and cheaper to replace. The diagnostic software costs an arm and leg, for example. If an open
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To the extent there has been improvements in efficiency, it's in the electric bits not the bulk of the refrigerator, which is just insulating material that hasn't changed all that much in a long time.