Re:SiFive Tapes Out First 5nm TSMC 32-bit RISC-V Chip with 7...
by PragmaticPulp on Friday April 16, 2021 @01:59PM
(#26837125)
> Also car companies are supposedly the culprit, even though their volume is only in the low tens of millions per year, and the dustup is apparently over only six months of capacity? What? I get that the auto industry is a nice reliable long-term source of revenue for chip companies, but fabs should barely be sneezing at that sort of volume.
I agree. I think the blame on automakers has been blown out of proportion. It doesn't make any sense that automakers cancelled orders, then reinstated those orders again with some extra demand, and now the entire chip market is stalled.
It's most likely due to the fact that consumer demand is up everywhere. The pandemic didn't hit the economy nearly as hard as expected, and we piled a lot of stimulus on top of that. Savings rate went up a bit, but much discretionary spending was diverted away from things like dining out and toward buying consumer goods.
> STMicroelectronics can't make any of their 40-130 nm microcontrollers for the next year
They're almost certainly making huge volumes of microcontrollers, but they're all spoken for with orders from the highest bidders.
We won't have inventory sitting on shelves again until fab capacity isn't being 100% occupied by existing orders. Need some surplus before we can get parts at DigiKey.
I agree. I think the blame on automakers has been blown out of proportion. It doesn't make any sense that automakers cancelled orders, then reinstated those orders again with some extra demand, and now the entire chip market is stalled.
It's most likely due to the fact that consumer demand is up everywhere. The pandemic didn't hit the economy nearly as hard as expected, and we piled a lot of stimulus on top of that. Savings rate went up a bit, but much discretionary spending was diverted away from things like dining out and toward buying consumer goods.
> STMicroelectronics can't make any of their 40-130 nm microcontrollers for the next year
They're almost certainly making huge volumes of microcontrollers, but they're all spoken for with orders from the highest bidders.
We won't have inventory sitting on shelves again until fab capacity isn't being 100% occupied by existing orders. Need some surplus before we can get parts at DigiKey.