The Chip Shortage Has Made a Star of This Little-Known Component (wsj.com) 63
The global chip shortage is giving rise to a small group of little-known companies whose products are increasingly essential to the plans of semiconductor industry titans. From a report: The companies make parts called substrates, which connect chips to the circuit boards that hold them in personal computers and other devices. The components are relatively simple but as vital to a computer chip's operation as the silicon at its core. Substrate manufacturing has long been seen as a backwater of the global chip supply chain. The sector's relatively low margins have led to underinvestment and, in recent months, added to the pain of a global chip shortage that has constrained personal computer sales, caused some auto makers to idle plants and raised costs for electronic devices.
Supplies of substrates used in some of the most advanced chips are particularly tight, and some industry specialists said they could remain in short supply for years. That has made sourcing the products a priority for chip companies including Intel, Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices and given new clout to the unheralded companies that specialize in making them. "Right now, all you have to do is say you manufacture substrates, and you get business -- it's insane," said Nicholas Stukan, chief business development officer at Zhuhai Access Semiconductor, a substrate manufacturer based in southern China. He said chip makers are begging for supply and are willing to pay much higher prices than usual to satisfy antsy customers. Intel Chief Executive Officer Pat Gelsinger discussed his company's efforts to address substrate shortages in the company's earnings calls this year -- the first time in a decade the topic was featured in any meaningful way in Intel's quarterly results presentation. Mr. Gelsinger is expecting the chip crunch to last into 2023 as the chip industry, including substrate suppliers, boost capacity. Adding a new substrate factory can take a year or two, he said in a July interview. "This is a challenging demand environment," he said.
Supplies of substrates used in some of the most advanced chips are particularly tight, and some industry specialists said they could remain in short supply for years. That has made sourcing the products a priority for chip companies including Intel, Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices and given new clout to the unheralded companies that specialize in making them. "Right now, all you have to do is say you manufacture substrates, and you get business -- it's insane," said Nicholas Stukan, chief business development officer at Zhuhai Access Semiconductor, a substrate manufacturer based in southern China. He said chip makers are begging for supply and are willing to pay much higher prices than usual to satisfy antsy customers. Intel Chief Executive Officer Pat Gelsinger discussed his company's efforts to address substrate shortages in the company's earnings calls this year -- the first time in a decade the topic was featured in any meaningful way in Intel's quarterly results presentation. Mr. Gelsinger is expecting the chip crunch to last into 2023 as the chip industry, including substrate suppliers, boost capacity. Adding a new substrate factory can take a year or two, he said in a July interview. "This is a challenging demand environment," he said.
Link with no paywall (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.livemint.com/indus... [livemint.com]
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It wasn't banking was dirty. It was that parts of banking was heretical.
Specifically, any charging of interest on a loan was considered usury, and usury was a sin in medieval Christianity. Belief that usury was okay was actually a heresy in medieval Christianity.
Combine that with restrictions against the Jewish people, limiting what jobs were available, and it's not surprising that some Jews became money-lenders to Christians.
Incidentally, since some Jews were bankers and had wealth, antisemitism was a us
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It wasn't banking was dirty. It was that parts of banking was heretical.
But what came first, calling banking heretical, or the Jews getting involved? I've heard that one argued both ways.
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Usury came first. It shows up in Leviticus (written about 500-300BC) where it is prohibited to lend money at interest against other Jews.
By about the 4th century AD, we have records of early Christians being against usury, such as Augustine of Hippo, and clergy was prohibited from the practice. Note, for the record, in the 4th century AD, Christianity was finally legalized in the Roman empire.
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Usury is still forbidden in much of Islam, which also includes paying interest and not just charging interest. But investment is ok as long as the returns are something other than interest. Saw an interesting article about how Muslims can buy a house in America without paying a traditional mortgage, if you can't pay the full cost in cash. One example is cost-plus - the bank buys the property outright as the asking price plus an extra amount, and then you pay on that debt monthly but it's technically inter
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The thing is, the moneychangers are running the temple now.
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Isn't "moneychanging" the entire point of Bitcoin?
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The Temple in Jerusalem was several football fields wide. No one could kick the money changers out of it. And to think they'd have simply acquiesced to a lone man causing a ruckus is unbelievable.
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The Temple in Jerusalem was several football fields wide. No one could kick the money changers out of it. And to think they'd have simply acquiesced to a lone man causing a ruckus is unbelievable.
Jesus was [supposedly] running around telling people to upset the social order and would likely have had a reputation for that before upsetting some tables in the temple, and the Roman Empire had a hard-on for killing people before they became a serious problem, which frankly is just good business sense if you don't value life highly. And who did back then?
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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I have a batch of these babies right here. I'm rich! RICH I tell you!
In all seriousness, though, I started switching back to ATMegas for less computationally expensive stuff because they are still fairly cheap to get and for most of what I need to do they're sufficient.
It still blows.
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I'm looking at using one of the bluetooth audio modules from Microchip and lead times on one particular model are are currently October, of 2022.
What's old is new again (Score:1)
Back in the day, a company called Newtek was the manufacturer of a product called the Video Toaster. This product relied upon a lot of RAM to do its magic. The company was in financial trouble and needed to file for bankruptcy protection. As part of the reorganization, an audit revealed that the company was sitting on a LOT of RAM chips which happened to be in great demand at the time. So they sold off the inventory at top dollar and kept the company afloat.
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the demand for Pi's are driven by hobbyists and don't have to compete with bitcoin miners and automotive manufacturers. The main thing to remember is that these sorts of products manufacture a large batch of chips then store them in a warehouse. When the warehouse is empty, they'll have to wait in line to make more.
I expect to see some weird prices on ebay or whatever for Pi3 versus Pi4 having wildly different prices, possibly even the 3 being more dear than the 4 for a brief period. I don't know how much w
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Where are you purchasing yours? I tried to order some from my usual U.S. suppliers (Sparkfun, Digikey, Adafruit, Mouser, Newark) a month ago and all showed zero inventory. I've been able to back-fill a bit by substituting other models or buying Starter Kits instead of standalone boards. Some are now available for backorder, with projected ship times in the 4-20 week range.
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I tend to go pi's, and so far have not seen issues.
The only place I could find that can ship a 2 GB Pi to the U.S. is in Canada. :-/ As far as I can tell, in the U.S., the 2 GB Pi is sold out nationwide. It has been this way for months, and they likely won't become available until next year.
It's at least possible to get the high-end configurations (4 GB and 8 GB) from *some* sellers, because a lot of people balk at spending an extra $20–40 for more RAM. But even the 4 GB and 8 GB models are sold out from many sellers.
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Henry Ford was right all along (Score:5, Interesting)
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No, they won't, because it is fucking stupid.
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So you expect automakers like Toyota to invest billions of dollars to create a chip foundry for their cars for what would be maybe a few weeks of production. That is just for the chip. Other components like capacitors also require billions of investment for a short periods of production.
So how many billions of dollars have been lost due to broken supply chains? How much is all that unsaleable inventory sitting on parking lots costing auto manufacturers? How costly and inefficient is all that reduced production with sky high demand? One auto manufacturer with the foresight to have a captive supply of semiconductors could have cleaned up in 2021. Instead, they are all laying off workers and closing plants.
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Given a set of fabs to supply the range of chips needed for a typical auto company, (think from infotainment systems requiring the latest node to ECU's that are probably on .18 or even older) would cost around 100B in investment,
TSMC's market cap in 2019 was $290B. Ford could not afford that then. They can afford TSMC's current $650B even less.
Re: Henry Ford was right all along (Score:1)
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So things like driver assist functions and SDC don't require high-tech processes?
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TSMC is a bad example, it is too big. There are plenty of other fabs spread around the world that are smaller. i.e. there is a fab here in Belgium, now owned by on semi. If you look around, you'll be surprised how many there are.
1) TSMC is currently making chips for the automakers so it is the perfect example. 2) Do automakers use the Belgium fab? Why or why not? 3) How much would it cost to buy the Belgium fab. 4) How much capacity does the Belgium fab have?
As for 1) and 2), not every fab is identical to every other fab. Some older fabs are not used as they do not and cannot make the product that is required. While automakers do not need 3nm or 5nm product, they contract with TSMC for a reason. Sure they could probably contract
Re: Henry Ford was right all along (Score:1)
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Ford bought existing businesses. GM did as well in their earlier years.
Well, that's nice. So which businesses do you suggest the various automakers buy? TSMC? Samsung? Global Foundries? And what makes you think the companies that own the IP for the chip designs wants to sell them? Now the automakers need their own chip designers too? Very efficient! And don't forget, the raw materials needed to fab the chips are also part of the supply chain. Guess every automaker needs to purchase a mine to supply that stuff.
And that is just for the chips themselves. This article isn
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Nope, not a one. They are smart enough to know that had they bet on it, they would be broke and chip shortages would be the least of their concerns.
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Re:Henry Ford was right all along (Score:4, Informative)
Ford bought existing businesses. GM did as well in their earlier years.
TSMC's current market cap is $650B today and was $290B in 2019 [companiesmarketcap.com]. Ford is $50B today and $38B in 2019 [companiesmarketcap.com] and GM is $70B today and $50B in 2019 [companiesmarketcap.com]. So you expect somehow Ford could buy a company that before the current shortage was worth 9X theirs. How? Combined both GM and Ford cannot buy TSMC. That is just one company.
So how many billions of dollars have been lost due to broken supply chains? How much is all that unsaleable inventory sitting on parking lots costing auto manufacturers?
Far far less than the $650B that Ford does not have today.
How costly and inefficient is all that reduced production with sky high demand?
Every day, stuff happens in the world that no one can anticipate. That does not mean a company spends billions of dollars because you feel they should.
One auto manufacturer with the foresight to have a captive supply of semiconductors could have cleaned up in 2021. Instead, they are all laying off workers and closing plants.
And which automanufacturer would do that. Almost no one in many, many industries keeps large inventories. Laying off workers and plants is unfortunate; however, going bankrupt and ceasing to exist because they spent 9X their value is worse.
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It seems like a large part of the problem is that the microprocessor ecosystem has evolved to mean only a handful of large scale producers, TSMC, etc and based entirely on silicon semi conductors. Will be interesting if any green shoots arise from this supply debacle that are new, different ways of computing.
While certain parts of the modern auto might need fast silicon (or SiC if you are Tesla) for things like auto-pilots, I'm guessing even a decent infotainment system for a car could get by on a slower a
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Vertical integration in manufacturing means maximum capital outlay and your profit is amortized along the entire stack. Vertical integration is useful if some absolutely necessary stages are not profitable enough (or at all!) and you can offset it by other stages that are very profitable. But if you have a working supply chain you can offload the less profitable aspects parts of manufacturing and focus on your core business. This means you have less overhead in staff and management as compared to a more int
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And, that is exactly what Amazon has been doing for at least 7 years.
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Bullshit. Amazon may design their own chips, but they do not fab them.
unrelated.... (Score:1)
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Missing Context (Score:5, Informative)
* It's not the silicon wafer (either before or after lithography).
* It's not the printed circuit board that the chip gets soldered to.
Instead, for certain kinds of chips, it is the thing the silicon die gets attached to so that it can more easily end up on a circuit board. If you do an image search for "microprocessor" [google.com], you'll see a bunch of "chips" that actually look like little circuit boards - often with tiny surface mount components added (usually capacitors). That circuit board-looking thing is the substrate. In its construction it is much like a PCB, in that it has layers with traces, pads, vias, etc. Except that the layers tend to be microns thick and have tightly controlled impedance and dielectric properties; the vias tend to be micron-sized and made by lasers rather than drills. It tends to look a lot more like the metal interconnect layers of the silicon die than a more conventional PCB.
Depending on the device and the manufacturing process, the die may be adhered and then wire-bonded or, increasingly these days, have miniscule solder balls and attached to the substrate that way. Substrates are largely for handling: as an adapter between the tiny feature sizes of the relatively delicate silicon dies and the more robust (but still small by human standards) feature sizes of PCBs.
Substrates can also be used, as the images show, as mini circuit boards, putting multiple silicon dies in very close proximity together into a single module, and sprinkling a few passive components (e.g., capacitors) in there to improve performance.
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Another good way to see the distinctions is to look at UV erasable EEPROMs, you can easily see the silicon chip inside the little window, and the part this article is about is the black part that hooks between the circuit board and the chip. When most people think of chips, they are really thinking about the ceramic or metal substrate, because most people have never seen a silicon chip.
https://images.app.goo.gl/sT3w... [app.goo.gl]
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No, that's called an interposer.
The substrate is the undoped silicon die. From a supply chain perspective, it is the whole wafer.
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No, the "substrate" is as I described it. From the article:
If the article meant raw silicon
Substrate and Toilet Paper (Score:3)
Since it's all people, the same fears applies. Be it toilet paper, substrates, capacitors, resistors, etc... If it goes on a board, or in the production of a chip or a board, everyone and their grandmother are hoarding it now.
Welcome to 2020.
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Welcome to 2021, where we're out of livestock dewormer and oxygen tanks.
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If it goes on a board, or in the production of a chip or a board, everyone and their grandmother are hoarding it now.
Hoarding suggests people are holding inventory. That is not the case. There are simply a lot of things in short supply with little inventory.
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The third-party package assembly companies my employer contracts with are now requiring significantly more substrate upfront before they take on work. So it's not little inventory, it's actually large inventory that's the problem.
Similar little-known fact (Score:5, Interesting)
I was talking to the owner of a custom wiring-harness manufacturer about the long lead-times for connectors and associated pins. Some stuff is backordered until March 2022. She said that she had to inform a client that the harness they ordered couldn't be completed until the fall of 2022. Then we got into talking about chips shortages and she said that it has a lot to do with a shortage in a particular kind of glass used to make the chips. That glass is also used for COVID vaccine vials. So, combine an overall production slowdown due to COVID with a diversion of a key material to deal with COVID and you have a major problem.
BUT WHY is substrate in short supply ?! (Score:2)
TFA tells us new substrate factories are needed.
But it does not explain WHY.
Who is consuming the substrate made by the other factories, that is leading to a shortage for yet another year ?!
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It is the entire pure silicon "chip" that all integrated circuits are built out of. It's grown into a large rod-shape of pure crystal in a factory known as a foundry. Diameter of 200 mm or 300 mm. Then sliced into shiny flat discs, known as wafers, before being shipped to fabrication factories for the fabrication of the IC.
There's nothing without the substrate. Everyone is consuming it because it's the bulk material of every IC. It is not used for interconnect at all.
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Yes.
BUT WHY is substrate in short supply ?!
Lol, the susbstrate ... (Score:1)
is the silicon die that the integrated circuit is etched into! It is the functioning chip sans the packaging.
There is no chip without the substrate.
Clickbait title (Score:2)
Do we really need clickbaiting like this on Slashdot? Is it just me?
Why not change the title "Microsoft Joins Open Infrastructure Foundation" to "Is Microsoft up to Embrace and Extinguish again?" Or "Ford Hires Away Executive Leading Apple's Car Project" to "End of Apple's Most Ambitious Project"
Or why not rename the article "WhatsApp Moderators Can Read Your Messages" to... never mind. That on just works just fine.