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I agree that it wouldn't be catastrophic, but we just saw a semiconductor shortage during COVID. For a lot of us end-users, that mainly meant that we couldn't g

I agree that it wouldn't be catastrophic, but we just saw a semiconductor shortage during COVID. For a lot of us end-users, that mainly meant that we couldn't get a Raspberry Pi, but it did affect some industries where a lot of Micro-controllers (including simple 8-bit AVRs) and even stuff like ADC/DACs weren't available at all or only for way jacked up prices for a while. I think the automotive industry also suffered from that despite all their money because they couldn't just swing a magic wand to make a chip foundry appear in their backyard. But in the end, everything was fine because as you say, eventually everyone is going to move.

TylerE 3y ago
It doesn’t sound like this would cause any short term pain really, just make it harder to spin up new capacity.
dopylitty 3y ago
Was everything fine in the end? We would probably never hear about it if for a completely made up example an extra 10k people died because some medical device was being made without some microprocessor that made it more effective or reliable. It’s possible for things with large scale effects to have large impacts without it becoming well known by people not working in the affected industry or directly impacted.
- MenhirMike 3y ago
  It's a good point - I was more talking about society as a whole, since we didn't collapse. And we wouldn't collapse if some Quartz mind in North Carolina closes either. But yes, on an individual level, it can be severe. Like the employees of car manufacturers who lost their jobs because they couldn't make cars for a while because they didn't have the chips needed.
  - chii 3y ago
    society didnt collapse, but some people bore more of the burden than others.
- InitialLastName 3y ago
  As another example, I (and many other hardware engineers I know) spent 2021 doing essentially remediation on current designs to keep things in production (by designing in new parts). If there hadn't been shortages, we could have spent that time designing new products that will now either never be released or come to market a year later than they otherwise would have (preventing their use for that year).

TylerE 3y ago

It doesn’t sound like this would cause any short term pain really, just make it harder to spin up new capacity.

dopylitty 3y ago

Was everything fine in the end? We would probably never hear about it if for a completely made up example an extra 10k people died because some medical device was being made without some microprocessor that made it more effective or reliable. It’s possible for things with large scale effects to have large impacts without it becoming well known by people not working in the affected industry or directly impacted.

MenhirMike 3y ago
It's a good point - I was more talking about society as a whole, since we didn't collapse. And we wouldn't collapse if some Quartz mind in North Carolina closes either. But yes, on an individual level, it can be severe. Like the employees of car manufacturers who lost their jobs because they couldn't make cars for a while because they didn't have the chips needed.
- chii 3y ago
  society didnt collapse, but some people bore more of the burden than others.
InitialLastName 3y ago
As another example, I (and many other hardware engineers I know) spent 2021 doing essentially remediation on current designs to keep things in production (by designing in new parts). If there hadn't been shortages, we could have spent that time designing new products that will now either never be released or come to market a year later than they otherwise would have (preventing their use for that year).