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> USA has plenty of older fabrication labs Do we? The current, continuing semiconductor shortage argues otherwise. I mean, the fact that a "switching regulat
by bsder 5y ago
> USA has plenty of older fabrication labs
Do we? The current, continuing semiconductor shortage argues otherwise.
I mean, the fact that a "switching regulator" can go out of stock borders on the absurd unless those fabs are busy producing stuff with higher margins.
- dragontamer 5y agohttps://www.icinsights.com/news/bulletins/Taiwan-Maintains-Edge-As-Largest-Base-For-IC-Wafer-Capacity/ https://www.icinsights.com/news/bulletins/Taiwan-Maintains-E... "North America" is producing 2,623,000 wafers per month in 2020. In 2014, North America was producing 2,245,000 wafers/month. And remember: wafers are raw silicon. Since geometry continues to shrink (22nm, 14nm, 10nm, 7nm, 5nm), even here in the USA, each wafer is making more and more transistors. In any case, the issue is one of demand. COVID19 stressed the fab-labs like never before, requiring semiconductors to make laptops, cellphones, cameras and many other components. The car-manufacturing shutdown followed up by the rapid production increase was also a problem. By all measures, the worldwide supply of chips has increased. Its just that demand has outpaced supply. --------- It really does seem like the "cryptocoin" industry is eating up a lot of our production capacity. But also the rise in deep-learing platforms (GPUs/TPUs), SSD storage, and other transitions to semiconductors.