chips and cars

søndag den 8. august 2021 kl. 01.17.32 UTC+2 skrev RichD:

I don't think so, just build up shortage of all kinds of ICs and factories not able to catch up. But thousands of cars parked waiting for a missing part is a lot more visible that some electronics gadget that just doesn't build

There seems to be a big shortage on many things. We waited almost a year for a refrigerator like we wanted and had to settle for a white one instead of stainless.

Walmart can not even seem to stock the Deer Park water my wife likes.

søndag den 8. august 2021 kl. 01.34.02 UTC+2 skrev Ralph Mowery:

seems like the pandemics caused a combination of many people not being at work and manufacturers not producing as much expecting a slowdown, that didn't really happen

With the pandemic few people were buying cars. The auto industry cut back their orders. With everyone working from home PC and networking companies upped their orders - more than taking up the slack from the auto industry. Then the auto makers came back and found the IC manufactures didn't have any capacity for them. Duh

and everyone not crazy about having to put on a hazmat suit to take public transport ran out to buy a car

I can see your chips from my kitchen.

The bay is full of container ships waiting to get into Oakland.

Your description is not much like reality. It's not just autos that can't get chips. It is everyone. I've seen no one indicate any capacity was reduced other than the AKM factory fire in November. The auto makers didn't stop buying chips, they simply scaled back their orders when they were not building cars because of COVID. No one knew how demand would respond, no one knew how much the factories would have to be shut down. Don't blame the auto makers for something they did not create.

Blaming the auto makers for the chip shortage is like blaming China for COVID or India for the delta variant.

They are not likely to move chips by ship, but by plane.

I wasn't blaming the auto industry for the shortage. I was saying that by cutting back their orders they lost the capacity that had been allocated for their orders. So when other segments increased their orders it took all the existing capacity and more. When the auto makers came back they were at the end of the (long) line.

The reality is they are never at the end of the queue. Businesses that use large quantities of produce are the segment that pays for the factory. Then the rest of the customers pay higher prices and provide the majority of the profit. Even when automakers cut their production they were still the lion's share of the market. They use an awful lot of semiconductors in cars these days.

I've read everything I can find on the chip shortage and there are lots of statements about what they think is going on, but nothing backed by real data.

I've got 30,000 Maxim analog switch chips coming in at the factory price, but my customer may want delivery of the product earlier in which case I'll need to pay brokers to find another set of parts. I'm wondering if I can try to recoup that extra cost by selling the late parts from Maxim on the market. Any idea how much markup the brokers add to the price? The factory is charging about $3 and the brokers are charging about $7. Maybe when the parts arrive in October the price will be more.

A lot of events happened

Covid causing automotive industry to cancel orders Working from home meant people buying a lot of IT equipment People not able to spend money on normal stuff, so buy more gadgets Apple and others stockpiling chips Fabs changing focus to Apple and others Fabs shutting down Two fabs shut down due to earth quakes and explosion Automotive going EV

A tightly run fab business that when disturbed by these events cause instability in the supply chain

Workers on factory send home due to Covid

Cheers

Klaus

One significant I forgot: panic buying in combination with running several production lots at one time (slots during Covid moved to present day)

Or inside cars.

or not. GM, Ford and Tesla have reported cars in transition lots without chips. They move the cars first, then install the chips later.

They used to do that with engine parts.