'We're in a Hurry.' Qualcomm New CEO Scrambles To Cope With a Global Chip Crisis. (wsj.com) 28
Cristiano Amon is the new boss of Qualcomm, a U.S. tech giant that designs semiconductors. His first task: Convince companies to make more chips for him -- and fast. From a report: Months before Cristiano Amon started as CEO of Qualcomm, he already was at work on his first crisis. To solve it, he sat in a mostly empty meeting room in Taipei and pleaded with executives from one of the world's biggest semiconductor makers for more chips. He needed the help so that Qualcomm, a designer of circuits that go into hundreds of millions of electronic devices every year, could chase new markets and meet demand from big customers such as Apple, Samsung Electronics and China's top handset-makers. In fact, he needed the assistance so much that he got permission from the Taiwanese government to arrive in March and then waited through a three-day quarantine. Once he and his team got to the meeting place in a Taipei hotel, they negotiated with counterparts across a large room outfitted with microphones and speakers to communicate.
"I'm a very big believer that sometimes you have to meet folks in person," said Mr. Amon, who was named CEO in January and officially took over in June. Many new CEOs across the business world had to adjust to their roles amid unprecedented pandemic-era restrictions, getting to know key employees without ever meeting them in person and managing offices and business relationships from far away. Few can say they had a more tumultuous transition than Mr. Amon, a gregarious Brazilian who revels in person-to-person contact. He is juggling a cluster of major challenges -- a global chip shortage, a sudden shift in a key market, and an unexpected acquisition opportunity -- while trying to put his own stamp on a company after working there for more than two decades. He wants to focus on an expansion beyond Qualcomm's core mobile-phone chip business, a shift that began before he took over. "I've been doing many things in parallel and I want to succeed in them all," he said in an interview. "I can't afford not to do them because we're in a hurry."
"I'm a very big believer that sometimes you have to meet folks in person," said Mr. Amon, who was named CEO in January and officially took over in June. Many new CEOs across the business world had to adjust to their roles amid unprecedented pandemic-era restrictions, getting to know key employees without ever meeting them in person and managing offices and business relationships from far away. Few can say they had a more tumultuous transition than Mr. Amon, a gregarious Brazilian who revels in person-to-person contact. He is juggling a cluster of major challenges -- a global chip shortage, a sudden shift in a key market, and an unexpected acquisition opportunity -- while trying to put his own stamp on a company after working there for more than two decades. He wants to focus on an expansion beyond Qualcomm's core mobile-phone chip business, a shift that began before he took over. "I've been doing many things in parallel and I want to succeed in them all," he said in an interview. "I can't afford not to do them because we're in a hurry."
I just hope (Score:2)
That there are enough chips available to create new chip manufacturing sites.
Re:I just hope (Score:4, Informative)
One reason why Japan decided to Attack Perl Harbor that introduced America into WWII, was that Japan looked at the American Economy and Production output, and figured that it wouldn't be able to switch to a military economy fast enough.
The thing was, that America was in the Great Depression, and it had a lot of shutdown factories, unemployed skilled labor and underutilized infrastructure. So after the attack America was fast to switch to a Wartime economy.
Now when the pandemic hit in 2020. A lot of businesses including the chip makers, who were already running the finances lean, holding a lot of dept, etc... Either couldn't or chose not to keep their staff employed during the extended event. This caused a lot of people to leave the companies, (The chip makers and companies that supported the chip makers). After an employee leaves the organization, they often will not come back. Also hiring new employees will be difficult, as who left had a lot of experience, and you will need to hire newer workers, who will need to be trained and brought up to speed. So they are running behind from just staffing issues, but actually has a fair infrastructure that can do the work.
The companies don't want to point out that because they failed to support their staff in the times of need, is the reason why now they don't have staff. So they will blame other issues. They have the ability to make the chips, they just don't have the people.
Outsourcing chip production is great for small Co. (Score:2)
We're in a hurry! (Score:1)
And about a year and a half late
oh ffs (Score:2)
We have enough damn chips. We have so much hardware it's getting ridiculous.
For the price of a respectable burger-and-fries I can buy a rpi and for the price of a tank of gas I can buy a second-hand 1080p-if-not-more monitor.
Every other year we throw away (literally throw away, more often than not) our smartphones, that have more power than home desktop computers had a decade ago.
What we *don't* have is well-written software that can run on (what is NOW called) "slow" hardware.
If you understand, you underst
Re: (Score:2)
> If you understand, you understand: The global programming community today is complete, absolute garbage.
"Give me a break, anyone that can throw coal into a furnace can learn to code for god sake."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
My expectations for that man were low but godDAMN! :D
Re: (Score:2)
Most people can be taught to code.
But most people, by all appearances, cannot be taught to code well.
It's a little bit harder to do it well than most folks realize . . . even a lot of the folks who think they are doing it well already.
Re: (Score:2)
I would wager the problems that need solving can't be solved without coding well. More bad code may provide some benefit in the near term, but it seems like it would just cause more problems than it actually solves.
Re: (Score:3)
It isn't like we have one Computer Chip that does everything the specs need.
It isn't like I am going to dumpster dive some iPhone 6's for the chip that I can just pop into a systems motor control unit.
Re: (Score:2)
> It isn't like I am going to dumpster dive some iPhone 6's for the chip that I can just pop into a systems motor control unit.
I think a tear just rolled down Louis Rossmann's cheek. And it isn't a tear of happiness.
Re: (Score:2)
I am not sure why a Right to Repair Activist would have an issue where a device designed for low power, will not have a chip that is designed to be a motor controller for a high powered system. They are chips for Stepper Motors, Chips for Servo motors that don't work or are wired the same way. They are chips for Analog processing and chips for digital....
Re:oh ffs (Score:4, Interesting)
The quality of today's software does suck.
But that's orthogonal to the problem as I understand it.
The kinds of chips that have gone missing are mainly the ones used in embedded systems, in places such as automobiles, which have far more demanding requirements (e.g., tolerance for extreme ranges of temperature, vibration, etc.), and which cannot fail, ever, or else people's safety or possibly even their lives are endangered.
And at least in terms of safety and reliability, they have to run software that does NOT suck, and, therefore, that has already been battle-tested for years, if not decades.
Also, the lead time for making these or any other modern chips is fairly long, and complicated by uncertainties around COVID lockdown insanity as well as the growing political and military instability in and around the South China Sea.
Even in the best case scenario, we're in for a few more rough years, minimum.
Work (Score:2)
A CEO doing his job; so remarkable people write stories about it.
I guess ... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Now, which G will make my cellular data bill smaller? That's the G I want. Of course, it's probably the current G because the infrastructure is already paid-for. Reducing bills and stopping selling mostly pointless phone upgrades would reduce profits for the carriers and manufacturers and that can't be allowed. On that basis, I like your idea that 5G and the Gs after that be delayed.
Re: I guess ... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's a case of moving the goalposts. A decade ago having good call quality was the mark of a good cell phone carrier. Today, people think their cell coverage sucks if they can't stream 1080p video to their smartphone while riding on the subway.
Re: (Score:2)
if they can't stream 1080p video to their smartphone while driving down the freeway.
FTFY
Hijack (Score:2)
If only they'd listened to Trump... (Score:2)
If he'd listened to Trump, he might be announcing "got our own fabs now running full steam, suck it Xi!" instead of going around like a beggar asking for help from others' fabs.
Re: (Score:2)
if he had listened to him he'd be dead from Covid.
Taiwan (Score:2)
Open source the drivers (Score:2)
"...To Capitalise on a Global Chip Crisis" (Score:2)