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News emerged this week that Ford has parked around 40,000 unfinished new vehicles waiting for parts. If you thought parts shortages couldn't get any worse for the auto industry than they did last year, then it's time to hit reset. We've seen multiple car companies, including international giants like Honda and Toyota, struggle to deliver vehicles simply because they can't source the components they need. The same is true with Ford, which announced this week that up to 45,000 vehicles will be held in its inventory this quarter until they receive essential parts—mainly chips. The Blue Oval has made use...

In little over a week, Russia lost its second fighter jet, Su-30, to an uncanny crash when it was carrying out a massive aerial bombardment of Ukrainian cities and battling in the Kherson region. On October 23, an apartment building in Irkutsk, Siberia, was struck by a Russian Sukhoi Su-30SM Flanker multi-role fighter, killing both crew members and starting a massive fire on the ground. Su-30 is a two-seat, twin-engine, highly agile fighter aircraft produced by Sukhoi Aviation Corporation of Russia. The Su-30s are manufactured at the neighboring Irkutsk Aviation Plant, where the jet is reported to have just taken...

Micron Technology Inc. executives warned about a semiconductor downturn in late June, but now say that a “sharp and sudden” drop in demand exceeded even those expectations, suggesting the current chip glut could get a lot worse. Micron MU, 0.74% reported a worse-than-expected fiscal fourth quarter Thursday, with revenue plunging 23% from last year, but that wasn’t the big miss. Executives guided for $4 billion to $4.5 billion in revenue in the current quarter, more than $1 billion lower than analysts’ expectations, and suggested they could post a loss in the quarter even on an adjusted basis. “As we look...

A chip shortage has had a profound impact on the ability to buy a car. Supply chain problems have forced automakers to stop or limit the production of new cars, trucks, and SUVs. Together with disruptions due to the coronavirus pandemic, the price you pay and the deal you get could be very different from what you expect. We'll cover the causes of the chip shortage, how long it could last, and what it means for new car buyers. This page will be updated as new information becomes available, so make this your home base for key information to help...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Ukraine's two leading suppliers of neon, which produce about half the world's supply of the key ingredient for making chips, have halted their operations as Moscow has sharpened its attack on the country, threatening to raise prices and aggravate the semiconductor shortage. Some 45% to 54% of the world's semiconductor-grade neon, critical for the lasers used to make chips, comes from two Ukrainian companies, Ingas and Cryoin, according to Reuters calculations based on figures from the companies and market research firm Techcet. Global neon consumption for chip production reached about 540 metric tons last year, Techcet estimates. Both...

I live in Manassas, Virginia and have an RV, which I took to the Camping World dealer where I purchased it for some service. My brother gave me a ride back to my home and on the drive he remarked that the dealerships did not have new vehciles in their showrooms and lots. As we passed several dealerships on the way to my place, I looked over at the lots and showrooms. Sure enough, while there were many used vehicles, where new vehicles should be on the lots and in the showrooms, it was sparse to empty. The big lie...

Intel .. on Friday broke ground on two new factories in Arizona as part of its turnaround plan to become a major manufacturer of chips for outside customers. The $20 billion plants - dubbed Fab 52 and Fab 62 - will bring the total number of Intel factories at its campus in Chandler, Arizona, to six. They will house Intel's most advanced chipmaking technology and play a central role in the Santa Clara, California-based company's effort to regain its lead in making the smallest, fastest chips by 2025, after having fallen behind rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing ... deepening its manufacturing...

The great computer chip shortage of 2021 will likely get worse before it gets better. This conclusion was reached following brief study and anecdotal review. Moreover, while COVID lockdowns may have initially triggered the shortage, several decades of shortsighted decisions and simmering geopolitical tensions make it much more than a matter of fixing a few broken links in the supply chain. Here’s why… The world’s top two leading chip companies are Taiwan’s TSMC and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics. These two Asian firms, combined, control more than 70 percent of the semiconductor manufacturing market. The U.S., which was once a leader,...

Have you heard the one about the dead cars? No, not the ones we find in junkyards, but the ones that haven’t had life yet, thanks to the chip shortage. These so-called “dead” cars are vehicles that have rolled off the assembly line, otherwise ready for sale, sitting in fields or on lots near the factories that produced them, just waiting for chips The New York Times even recently recounted an anecdote from a dealer principal who took a pilgrimage to a Ford factory to see all the “dead” cars for himself. We weren’t able to pin down a reliable...

A microchip shortage is translating to higher car prices across America. CBS reported that the average price of a new car has topped $40,000 and that used car prices have risen nearly 30 percent due to the shortage. Lansing, Michigan, resident Heather Lyons knows that firsthand. In looking to buy a replacement for a totaled car, she said she will end up paying more to get less, according to WILX-TV. “It really is bad. My car payment last time for a decent vehicle was something I could afford and this time it’s going to be a worse vehicle for more...

White House coordinator for the Indo-Pacific Kurt Campbell said this week the U.S. does “not support Taiwan independence” but does “very much support Taiwan’s dignity.”

A state-backed Communist Chinese firm has conducted a hostile takeover of the UK’s largest microchip factory, raising concerns about Beijing’s growing control of the market during a global chip shortage. On Monday, Dutch semiconductor manufacturer Nexperia, which is controlled by the China-owned electronics firm Wingtech, took 100 per cent control of the Newport Wafer Fab’s factory in South Wales after using a contractural clause to seize the company. In 2019, Nexperia signed a contract to support the factory in exchange for Newport Wafer Fab putting up its factory as collateral. After the British company was unable to fulfil the manufacturing...

The official announcement of Windows 11 last month brought both excitement and confusion for enthusiasts. A brand-new Windows operating system only comes around every few years, but Microsoft’s hardware requirements left many scratching their heads. Chief among them is the instance on mandatory TPM 2.0 modules and AMD Ryzen 2000 or 7th generation Intel Core (and newer) processors. The processor cutoff was particularly puzzling, considering that AMD’s first-generation Ryzen 1000 processors came out in 2017, which is not that old in the grand scheme of things. For example, the 8-core/16-thread Ryzen 7 1800X is still a perfectly acceptable processor for...

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger Says Semi Shortage Could Last “A Couple Years” Brace for more pessimistic news about the global semiconductor shortage…Intel is now going on the record and doubling down on statements that its CEO made on 60 Minutes earlier this year, stating that it could take “several years” for the current supply shortage of semiconductors to be resolved. CEO Pat Gelsinger said that the pandemic-inspired “work from home” trend caused a “cycle of explosive growth in semiconductors”, according to Reuters. “But while the industry has taken steps to address near term constraints it could still take a couple...

We just had some Major Announcements about ARM Development that changes Intels X86 future! Here's what we found out! (spoiler alert -- they have met the enemy and it is them)

SiFive, a company established by researchers who invented the RISC-V instruction set architecture in the University of California Berkeley several years ago, has this week announced two platforms which could be used to design semi-custom SoCs based on RISC-V cores. SiFive is the world’s first and yet the only company developing chips featuring the RISC-V ISA and it already has initial customers interested in designing SoCs for machine learning, storage, embedded, IoT and wearable applications. SiFive: World’s First Developer of Commercial RISC-V Chips RISC-V is an open-source microprocessor architecture developed by researchers in the Computer Science Division at UC Berkeley and...

Apple just launched its first custom processor for computers. The M1 chip is similar to the A-series processors inside the iPhone and iPad, and it powers just two devices: The late 2020 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. And yet, Intel is still terrified, having mounted a massive ad campaign in an attempt to convince the world that the M1 MacBooks can’t stand up to Windows 10 laptops running on Intel hardware. The campaign was somewhat half-baked, and has since drawn criticism and ridicule for its missteps. The M1 MacBooks offer formidable performance and excellent battery life, with M1 being built...

Nvidia just made some MASSIVE announcements in terms of ARM-based computers, so they're now joining Apple and AMD in the fight against Intel and their x86-based chips.

The ongoing global semiconductor shortage is causing prices of electronics to rise while at the same time pressuring suppliers and material providers to continue raising prices. In the midst of the shortage, demand for consumer electronics has continued to rocket higher. Ergo, industry officials believe that the increases are likely to continue, according to a new Wall Street Journal report. The effects can be easily seen in consumer electronics. The report notes that items like one ASUS laptop that formerly cost $900 now costs $950. An HP Chromebook laptop that used to cost $220 has seen its price rise to...

The calm of a sunny May afternoon in Taiwan was broken by a crescendo of smartphones buzzing due to a national emergency alert. Electricity blackouts were coming due to a malfunction at a power plant in the south of the island. People had no time to prepare. There were more than 30 reports of people being trapped in elevators half an hour after the warning in the capital city. "I was talking to my clients... but our building suddenly blacked out. The air conditioning as well as WiFi crashed completely, so I went home early," a manager with the surname...