Scarcity of Chip - the importance of it
Ashutosh K.
Ex banker, Now self-employed, MD &CEO of Kumar Group of companies, Author of many books.
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????THE MAIN REASON?FOR THE SCARCITY OF CHIP AND SEMICONDUCTOR
?To understand the shortage of chips and semiconductors, it is quite necessary to know some terms and their property, process, and definition. Along with its major application.
Electronics Basics: Integrated circuit (IC, Chip, Semiconductor, and transistors
?SEMICONDUCTOR
.Semiconductors are materials whose electrical conductivity value is higher than insulators (such as stone) and lower than conductors (such as metal), including silicon and germanium. Due to the larger gaps that can insert other materials, silicon is used to manufacture transistors, which can augment the current signal.?A semiconductor substance that has specific electrical Semiconductors is an essential component of the microchips that power virtually every modern electronic device. As the objects around us get “smarter” and demand for electronics grows around the world, the demand for semiconductors will continue to reach new height properties that enable them to serve as a foundation for computers.
INTEGRATED CIRCUIT (IC)
An IC (integrated circuit) is the assembly of hundreds of millions of transistors on a minor chip in the size of about 0.5mm × 0.5mm. IC is classified into four types as per its function: According to the different functions, we classify ICs into four types:
????????1. Storage IC - it is used to store materials and is usually used for computers, e-dictionary, etc. DRAM, SRAM, and NAND Flash belong to storage ICs.
·???????2. Logic IC - it is used to deal with digital signals (0 and 1). Logic ICs are used for CPU, MPU, and GPU.
·???????3. Micro IC - it is mainly used to deal with digital and textual data. Micro ICs are used for communications between the CPU peripherals and other components.
·???????4. Analog IC - it is used to deal with analog signals. Analog ICs are used for power supplies and digital-analog converters because of their resistance to high voltages and currents.
·???????Chip is another name for the IC, or a chip is the carrier of the IC.
?WAFER
A wafer is the base of an IC.?It is more complex than IC, Chip, Semiconductor.. Wafers are made of silicon. When silicon is purified and melted into the liquid, manufacturers pull it into a quartz column. On the silicon crystal column, there are the quartz matrixes in a definite arrangement that the manufacturer designs. Then manufacturers cut the crystal column into thin slices with a diamond knife. After refining, these slices become wafers.
THE PROCESS OF?ICS MANUFACTURING
The diagram is a graphic design that explains rather than represents; especially: a drawing that shows arrangement and relations (as of parts). The working diagram of the IC is inscribed on the quartz wafer using electron beams, and is called the engraved quartz wafer a “photomask”. Then a wafer is layered with a layer of photoresist. Then the circuit pattern on the quartz wafer is printed on the wafer through ultraviolet light treatment and the convex lens. This is the photolithography process.
PHOTOLITHOGRAPHY
Photolithography is the standard method of the printed circuit board (PCB) and microprocessor fabrication. The process uses light to make the conductive paths of a PCB layer and the paths and electronic components in the?silicon?wafer of microprocessors.
The photolithography process involves light exposure through a mask to project the image of a circuit, much like a negative image in standard photography. This process hardens a photo-resistive layer on the PCB or wafer. The hardened areas stay behind in the form of circuit paths of PCBs and?CPUs. Unexposed areas are then dissolved away by a solution bath, such as an acid in wet methods or plasma-like oxygen ions in dry methods. A PCB might have as many as twelve of these layers and a processor might reach upwards of thirty, with some being metallic conductive layers and others insulating layers. Other steps include the deposition of conductive metallic elements.
Process shrinks, also known as die shrinks, are one of the main ways that the miniaturization of electronic devices is made possible. Photolithography process shrinks involve miniaturization of all semiconductor devices, in particular?transistors. Processors made on a smaller scale generally mean more CPUs per wafer, either for cheaper production or a more complex and powerful processor in given die size. Progress in miniaturization also fosters faster transistor switching speeds and lower power consumption, so long as there is not too much current leakage (which is one of the challenges that increase with this progress).
Technology speculators have long predicted the end of photolithography as a viable method of making faster and cheaper processors. Since the 1980s, it has been thought it would not be possible to produce a structure smaller than one micrometer. As technology progresses, it requires shorter wavelengths of light and more tricks to focus down ever smaller. Due to the increasingly minuscule scale, a speck of dust can potentially ruin a processor. To safeguard the process, photolithography takes place in very?clean rooms.?
Processors made in the 1970s through earlier methods used a regular white light to produce processors on a scale of 10 micrometers.?Currently, they might use extreme ultraviolet light for its smaller wavelength. The mask might be immersed in very pure deionized water, among other tricks, to enable the manufacturing of processors on a 22-nanometer?scale with features that are actually smaller than the wavelength of light used. Current processors are so small they require a scanning electron microscope just to observe their structures.
After the photolithography process, engineers add irons to the wafer to control the conductivity and make transistors and diodes on it. Then they flow rapidly in a steady stream. copper into the channels for wiring. Thereafter, comes the IC packaging and tests. ICs need to mount on a Printed Circuit Board (PCB)?to function.?In?aerospace, communications, national defense, and medical industries. The process of manufacturing even a single. Even though a customer orders only one piece of the circuit board, or in bulk, the manufacturing process remains the same for its high quality.
?Scalable Process Architecture(SPARC)
Scalable Processor Architecture (SPARC) is a 32- and 64-bit microprocessor architecture developed by Sun Microsystems in 1987.
?KEY POINTS
An ongoing supply crunch for chips has upset production in many industries, such as manufacturing of cars, ?consumer appliances, personal computers, smartphones or any types of electronic gadgets’ global chip scarcity has made a negative impact in human life. But 2022 “is more complicated as things could improve in the second half of the year 2022 ?as more supplies come online, but the first six months could still see compartments of shortage across the industry,
There is capacity coming online, not just from the foundry companies, but also from the Integrated Device Manufacturer companies. All the U.S. and European IDMs are also expanding their capacity which will help to improve availability from the middle of next year onwards.
The first is the very high-end compute segments. There’s an ongoing disruption in high-end computing globally, which used to be very huge but is now being fragmented after several companies connecting in this field. Now, tech titans such as Apple, Amazon, Meta, Tesla, Baidu, etc. are all excluding established chipmakers and carrying?a certain extent of chip development on their own. Due to a ?lot of fragmentation of that space occurring ?which?will ?lead to rapid ?growth which might be 15 to 20 percent within the next three to five years.”
The second trend?is positive for ?Chinese semiconductor companies that focus on legacy, long-tail ( The long tail is the name for a long-known feature of some statistical distributions (such as Zipf, power laws, Pareto distributions and general Lévy distributions).In "long-tailed" distributions a high-frequency or high-amplitude population is followed by a low-frequency or low-amplitude population which gradually "tails off" asymptotically.) technologies.
These companies manufacture a variety of less advanced chips in areas like power management, microcontrollers, sensors, and other consumer-related segments. It is seen that many companies are setting their base in China having the aim to achieve some of these longtail technologies. The local demand is clearly there. Most of these companies are only meeting ?5% to 10% of the local demand. So the potentiality of the market is having growth of ??5 to 10 [times] still underserved.
Asia, stop semiconductor firms by revenue?have posted double-digit annual profit growth in recent quarters. Chip manufacturing amid a global supply shortage is an attractive concept for companies. As such, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company has raised their price by around 10% for the advanced chip. However, less for advanced chips, mostly used by automakers will make an increase of prices accordingly.
?1.???Production lines for the new car have?stalled.??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
2.???Apple produced 19 million?but?which is why?less than 10 fewer plans.
Einstein concocted a theory in which space doesn't just curve, but swirls like a cyclone. Now it is making a comeback because it could fix several of the biggest problems in cosmology. Intel,?the chipmaker, also admitted the industry-wide component shortage affected its PC chip business during the third quarter (Q3).
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger told CNBC late on Thursday that he didn't expect the semiconductor shortage to end until 2023."We're in the worst of it now, every quarter, next year we'll get incrementally better, but they're not going to have supply-demand balance until 2023," Gelsinger was quoted as saying.
?CHIP MANUFACTURING LAW IN USA
, Gelsinger said that the digitization of all accelerated by the four superpowers of AI, pervasive connectivity, cloud-to-edge infrastructure, and ubiquitous computing are driving the sustained need for more semiconductors.
"The market is expected to double to $1 trillion by 2030. In that definite period, ?the market for advanced nodes will rise to be over 50 percent of the total, while the market for highly advanced foundry services will grow at twice the rate of the semi-industry overall. PC demand remains very strong, and "We believe the 2021 TAM (total addressable market) will grow double digits even as ecosystem shortages constrain our customer's ability to ship finished systems, Customers continue to choose Intel for their data center needs and our third-gen scalable Xeon processor Ice Lake has shipped over 1 million units since launching in April, and we expect to ship over 1 million units again in Q4 alone or almost a year, US companies and consumers have had to navigate a global chip shortage. Even among Covid-19 disruptions, this shortage stands out as uniquely impactful — semiconductors are a critical part of every digital device, powering our phones, cars, hospitals, and factory floors.
?America's ability to address the chip shortage is limited. Domestic chipmaking capacity has been declining for decades, as subsidies from other countries continue to drive?production?elsewhere. Our country's economic security rests on reliable access to semiconductors — an admission that requires near-term investment in our capacity and capability to produce more chips.
Federal support would even the playing field and unlock tens of billions of dollars in private investment here at home. That's why Congress must fund the?CHIPS for America Act, which will invest $52 billion in domestic?semiconductor?capacity and capability. The bill would provide billions in funding for manufacturing and R&D grants, invest heavily in advanced manufacturing and semiconductor research, establish?public-private partnerships?focused on the development of advanced microelectronics, and secure supply chains.
Funding the CHIPS for America Act requires Congressional action. Though the bill has secured strong bipartisan support in the Senate, the House must vote in favor of funding so it can proceed to the President's desk.
By design, the CHIPS for America Act incentivizes semiconductor companies to make major investments in the US economy and jobs. Combined public and private sector investment would substantially expand US chip production will create of big job chances in construction, manufacturing, and R&D. For example, research shows that each job at Intel is estimated to support 13 additional?American jobs. Building one semiconductor manufacturing mega-site is akin to building a small city, which brings forth a vibrant community of supporting services and suppliers. But, to be successful, this type of investment must be competitive. This bill provides the federal support needed to incentivize domestic chip production, helping to re-establish American technology leadership and secure the country's access to semiconductors.
The existing many US companies, it' is not cost-effective to produce semiconductors domestically. Chipmakers can face more than a 30%?cost disadvantage?when making semiconductors in the US instead of Asia. This has driven a steady decline in America's share of?global semiconductor manufacturing, which has dropped from 37% in 1990 to 12% in 2020.?Europe's share?has dropped from 44% to just 9% in the same time frame. Without government action, we cannot reach our final aim of a globally balanced silicon capacity and a resilient supply chain.
? In September, the President of the European Commission announced the?European Chips Act, delineation plans to invest in European research and production capacity. The US and the EU have an opportunity to rebalance silicon capacity globally, but the federal investment is essential for US chipmakers and the US to remain competitive. Other countries have actively invested in their own chip manufacturers for years, and as a result,?Asia?represents 75% of the world's total semiconductor manufacturing capacity, and?China?alone is investing $150 billion in semiconductors in the coming years.
Federal support may not erase current chip shortages in the US, but it will be fundamental to avoiding them in the future. Given that so much of the semiconductor and technology industry supply chain resides in Asia, future risks are far greater than the shortages we are experiencing today. Without US investment to make domestic chip manufacturing competitive with other countries, America will not have sustainable access to the chips that power our economy and national defense.
Time is not on our side. It takes at least three years to build state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities and five to 10 years for supply chains to move. As the global shortage has shown, the chip supply is vulnerable, and domestic production is limited. Congress must act now to make sure we don't fall
·???????Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. accounts for?54%?of the global market share
·???????Taiwan, South Korea, and China combine for?87%?of the global semiconductor market
领英推荐
?
Semiconductors are an essential component of the microchips that power virtually every modern electronic device. As the objects around us get “smarter” and demand for electronics grows around the world, the demand for semiconductors will continue to reach new height..
?
?
?
?
THE BIGGEST SEMICONDUCTOR COMPANIES
We have to choose to do ranking of companies, it’s valuable that to have context on their business. Also known as first semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), Broadcom and Nvidia. *With advancements in technology, semiconductor chips are literally the backbone of many essential industries ranging from healthcare to agriculture.*Production of such chips can involve more than 1,000 steps and multiple country border crossings.
*US is the leader in terms of R&D activities in chips, while Taiwan leads the way in the assembly, packaging and testing functions of semiconductors. A vast majority of the world’s chips are manufactured in China.
?
THE MAIN CAUSE OF?THE GLOBAL CHIP SHORTAGE
The dearth ?first arose after the Covid-19 pandemic devastated globally, and some countries the most in 2020, leading to extensive restrictions. Although the effect was not sensed due to lower demand for goods during the pandemic, the situation has changed considerably.
?
While demand for electronic goods across various segments propelled, companies are ?unable to bring due to the chip shortage. Some key reasons?are supply chain disruptions due to the pandemic, a sharp rise in demand for electronic goods as more people are now working from home and lack of investment in chip building capacities. Several reports point to that the chip shortage may continue till 2023.?as supply disruptions due to ongoing Covid restrictions may continue for at least a year. But it is not certainly but on safer side and conservative. Some experts hint that the chip lack could last at least 18 months before the demand-supply equation normalizes. Experts suggest ?that countries will have to rise up investments considerably in chip building capacities to resolve the ongoing crisis.
INDUSTRIES AFFECTED
?
Innumerable industries got impacted as global demand for semiconductor chips continue to exceed supply. Globally, vehicles makers have been worst hit by the chip shortage with major car manufacturers like Volkswagen, Ford, Renault, Nissan and Jaguar Land Rover are feeling the thrash. All these companies are likely to drop billions due to the shortage of chips, which are used in many car components such as digital speedometers, infotainment systems, computerized management of engines and driver assistance systems. Most companies have said that the disruption in vehicle supplies could last till at least 2022 . Briefly l, the paucity ?semiconductor chips has severely affected the global automotive industry. The ??shortage of chips will impact the car market negatively till 2022. To cope with the chip shortage, carmakers are now already leaving out high-end features. Not just the auto industry but consumer goods and smartphone manufacturers are also under pressure to meet the rising demand for products.
?
?
South Korean consumer durables and electronic products giant Samsung recently said that the chip shortage has hit its television and appliance production. Companies like Apple, LG and other Chinese electronic and smartphone manufacturing companies have also been severely impacted by the chip shortage. But the problem is more widespread than it appears. While automakers and consumer electronic goods manufacturers have been worst affected, countless other firms have been impacted as all modern tech requires semiconductors.
?
?
?
THE IMPACT ON CHIP SHORTAGE ON HUMAN BEING
Obviously yes. The chip shortage directly effects consumers as prices have risen of our common used ?appliances and electronic goods ,like, TV, smartphone, laptop, etc. increased due to the global supply chain disruption.
In the meantime, ?the lack ?of semiconductor chips has enforced carmakers to increase the prices of vehicles. For example,??Maruty in ?India due to increase of manufacturing cost. It has also made shortage of some key products too. It has created a barrier to reduce pace of technological development..
?
The rise in ?input cost may be a direct outcome of the global chip shortage. It is the most probably that ?other carmakers?will ?also increase the prices of their vehicles, given the shortage of chips. As the circumstances stances , the global chip crisis is not going to addressed in short time, so increase of price is inevitable ?of many electronic goods and components could increase further 1 per cent to 3 per cent. It is not just price but also halt or reduce rapid progress in digital and software development. It will be a major blow of the scientists and engineers. In spite of ?major chip manufacturing companies have announced investments to increase ?producing lines, but ?it would take at least two to three years to build the new semiconductor chip production plants.
?
?
Efforts to balance demand and supply of the global chip
Assumption of low stock and high prices may last until 2023 for GPUs, consoles and many other gadgets. It will a fatal blue on some of the advanced aged electronics goods.
2,877
Comments posted on?Engadget?this month
Comment
It has resulted into meme that sorry out of supply. There's a kernel of truth to it. The semiconductor chip crisis is real, and it's had a serious direct impact on our daily lives. Cars are more expensive and harder to build. Computer makers are rushing to keep up with an insatiable consumer demand for remote work and school devices. And?innumerable have been delayed and postponed to future without any time frame.
While it's an issue that affects practically everyone, the chip shortage has been particularly painful for many persons dependent on the latest developed technical advancement. The digital progress will become linear. ??PC players longing to upgrade their GPUs, who have already gotten used to dwindling hardware supplies and shoot up prices, will have to live with their old video cards a bit longer.
The problem ?is mainly ?created by ?a simple supply and demand. But there are other reasons too, auto sectors lowered hardware demand keeping in view the onset of the pandemic, with the guess ?that consumers wouldn't be interested in buying new vehicles. But just opposite has happened as the ?immense rise of ?demand has forced to increase of prices.. Chipmakers were also forced to keep up with a rising demand for PCs, game consoles and a wide assortment of gadgets while also dealing with production slowdowns amid COVID lockdowns and other precautions.
While future chip fabs from intel, TSMC and Samsung could boost supplies, it will still take at least two years. Intel?began construction on its two Arizona chip factories in September 2021 is expected to start commercial production not before 2024.Basically, get used to chip shortage, as we'll be suffering through it for a while. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger also confirmed that he expects the situation to last until 2023. "COVID disrupted the supply chains, causing it to go negative," he said during a press event in Malaysia, where the company is investing $7.1 billion in manufacturing and packaging lines. "Demand exploded to 20 percent year-over-year and disrupted supply chains created a very large gap ... and that exploding demand has persisted."
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang echoed the same sentiment as he could not see any “magic bullets” when it comes to dealing with the supply chain. So the shortage would not ?intensely affect the development of new products. . Scalpers and crypto miners usually bought up all of the available stock, leaving average consumers with a limited amount of inventory from stores and resellers. While Huang expects production to ramp back up in 2023, but also believes the pandemic-driven push towards buying more computers and gaming hardware is constant. People are building home offices, and you could see all of the implications.
In the USA, a gleam of hope that the Innovation and Competition Act (USA), which includes $52 billion in funding for the CHIPs for America Act, could spur on more semiconductor production. But after passing the Senate earlier this year, the legislation has stalled in the House of Representatives, where?Republican members threaten to block USICA. The bill also includes $190 billion towards improving American semiconductors all in the hopes of becoming more competitive with China, which dramatically bolstered its chip production.
The manufacturing conflict between the two countries came to the problem ahead this year, when the Biden administration reportedly put pressure on Intel to know open any company in China.?All re aware that t the US and China have been engaged in a quiet cyberwar for years. ?Considering the many difficulties in the way of fixing the chip supply chain, there’s one thing everyone may have to get used to gearing longer ?to live without this problem for some time:
CONCLUSION.
?But we hope that like any other problems, it will also be solved.