Further context around the 'chip shortage'

[Franco Cozzo]

I thought this would be interesting to discuss, looking a bit deeper into the 'chip shortage' issue that's iced everyone's production capabilities.

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/h...ly-170762.html

I thought this snippet is interesting:

One approach that few carmakers seem to be exploring because of obvious reasons is investing in a modern chip design. Carmakers are still sticking with old chip platforms that remain in high demand right now (in fact, foundries have already moved to a new design and don’t want to expand old design capacity because it’d only be a short-term investment), as migrating to a new platform requires additional spending, especially in the testing phase, just to make sure everything is running properly.

On the other hand, Tesla is the living proof that redesigned electronics using a new-generation chip architecture is the right way to go, especially as the supply in this market isn’t by any means short, and turning to production shutdowns isn’t thus required. But for Tesla, things are a lot easier, especially as it’s a tech-oriented company and therefore developing the underlying software is much more convenient than for a traditional carmaker.

It's put a little further context around one of the problems, are the manufacturers using legacy architectures/designs for their electronics?

https://fortune.com/2021/09/17/chip-...tor-stone-age/

When it comes to the electronic circuits that power our everyday lives, the automobile is simultaneously the world’s most expensive consumer good and the one that runs on the cheapest possible semiconductor chips.

Moore’s law of ever-increasing miniaturization seemingly never reached the automotive industry. Dozens of chips found in everything from electronic brake systems to airbag control units tend to rely on obsolete technology often well over a decade old. These employ comparatively simple transistors that can be anywhere from 45 nanometers to as much as 90 nanometers in size, far too large—and too primitive—to be suitable for today’s smartphones.

When the pandemic hit, replacement demand for big-ticket items like new cars was pushed back while sales of all kinds of home devices soared. When the car market roared back months later, chipmakers had already reallocated their capacity.

Now these processors are in short supply, and chipmakers are telling car companies to wake up and finally join the 2010s.

“I’ll make them as many Intel 16 [nanometer] chips as they want,” Intel chief executive Pat Gelsinger told Fortune last week during his visit to an auto industry trade show in Germany.

Carmakers have bombarded him with requests to invest in brand-new production capacity for semiconductors featuring designs that, at best, were state of the art when the first Apple iPhone launched.

“It just makes no economic or strategic sense,” said Gelsinger, who came to the auto show to convince carmakers they need to let go of the distant past. “Rather than spending billions on new ‘old’ fabs, let’s spend millions to help migrate designs to modern ones.”

Cars always seem to run microwave oven level electronics in comparison to consumer electronics, I find it interesting that they're using technology that dates back to when the first iPhone was introduced, 15 years ago.

Is it that maybe the processing power demands of cars are so low that they don't 'need' the capability of modern architecture? It's obvious that the industry detests change, that could be because of its corporate accountant overlords rather than the Poindexters in the propeller hats who do all the hard yards inventing/designing stuff on shoe string budgets.