Posted on 06/18/2022 4:13:45 AM PDT by FarCenter
...
Semiconductor manufacturing involves hundreds of carefully formulated, highly-purified chemicals, gases and materials. Together, they account for about 20% of total chip manufacturing costs, industry executives estimate.
But this part of the $40 billion chipmaking supply chain -- including wafers, chemicals, gas to materials that are indispensable to building chips -- has long been overlooked, as the prices of these chemicals and materials tended to be stable and their availability reliable.
All that changed after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, war in Ukraine and a sudden boom in demand for chips for applications like 5G connectivity and electric vehicles, industry executives told Nikkei Asia. These factors, they said, have thrown supply and demand far out of balance.
An executive with Wah Lee Industrial, a Kaohsiung-based distributor of chipmaking and electronics materials and chemicals, echoed LCY President Liu's assessment: "The industry is very interconnected," he told Nikkei Asia, pointing to how climbing energy prices are pushing up the cost of chipmaking chemicals like sulfuric acid and hydrogen peroxide.
Metal prices are also on the rise due to a combination of supply disruption and surging demand from the EV industry.
"It's likely that we will need to bear a more costly future," the executive said. "It's not likely that all these metal and chemical prices will go down suddenly."
(Excerpt) Read more at asia.nikkei.com ...
I recall reading some backstory about Frank Herbert’s Dune universe and the reason there’s no “technology” in that version of the future is that it became sentient and they destroyed it before it could destroy them.
I wonder if we’re going to lapse into a sort of steampunk or techno-dystopian world where computing comes to a halt at some point due to material availability or something similar. This certainly doesn’t bode well.
Yet they are talking about a massive deflationary shock as products made with these base products are not selling because of high prices and warehouses are becoming full with more product coming in with no place to be stored.
Tariff electronics and bring that industry back here WHERE IT BELONGS.
They’re not mutually exclusive - both conditions can simultaneously exist.
The Butlerian Jihad, also known as the Great Revolt as well as commonly shortened to the Jihad, was the crusade against computers, thinking machines, and conscious robots begun in 201 BG and concluded in 108 BG.[1]
By 108 BG, the Jihad itself had finished with the complete destruction of all intelligent machines that were originally built by humans throughout the worlds, but it proved to have many profound impacts on the socio-political and technological development of humanity throughout the new empires that emerged, including a large technological reversal of the entire human civilization. The Butlerians who had begun the Jihad left armies in their wake.
The most dramatic long-lasting result was the ensuing commandment from the Orange Catholic Bible held sway to humans against the creation of machines which bore the human mind's exact image: Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind, after the destruction of the man-made intelligent machines throughout the human worlds. Even the simplest computers and calculators were banned, with the penalty for building or owning such a thinking machine technology being put to trial and sentenced to immediate death.
This lack of thinking technology created a severe gap in humanity's quality of life, revolving around a need for humans to perform complex logical computations and calculations. This gap led to the creation of the mentat order (which would be later outlawed by Leto Atreides II in an attempt to realize the Golden Path strategy), the Bene Gesserit, and the Spacing Guild. Non-thinking machines, however, were still utilized. As centuries passed, two fringe worlds, Ix and Tleilax, brought technological heights of the Ixians and the Bene Tleilax. Ixians specialized in the creation of non-thinking mechanical devices; while biological technology was provided by the Tleilax to replace the mechanical thinking technology used prior to the Jihad.
Asia Likely to Lead Record Fab Expansions in 2022
Asia’s two largest chipmaking nations are expected, once again, to lead the rest of the world in new fab investments in 2022, according to a recent report from industry association SEMI.
Taiwan and South Korea will account for more than half of the $109 billion in expenditures on fab equipment this year.
Global fab equipment spending for front-end facilities is expected to increase 20% year-over-year (YOY) to an all-time high of $109 billion in 2022, marking a third consecutive year of growth following a 42% surge in 2021, according to SEMI’s latest quarterly World Fab Forecast report.
Despite signs of a slowdown in demand for electronics such as smartphones and PCs, the report said fab equipment investment is expected to remain strong in 2023. Chipmakers are racing to meet demand as semiconductor shortages persist for manufacturers of systems ranging from automobiles to arms.
https://www.eetimes.com/asia-likely-to-lead-record-fab-expansions-in-2022/
All that increase in fabs requires investment in upstream suppliers as well.
Thank you! I knew I wasn’t doing it justice.
Screw that. Bring back chip making to the USA. A small tariff would reverse the polarity quickly.
The objective of AI is not to make machines in the likeness of a human mind.
The objective is to make machines much more intelligent than humans.
I’m good with many products NOT being made with computer chips any more.
I don’t need “smart” appliances that are useless if the computer chips burn out.
Give me something mechanical that a person can fix themselves.
The Chinese are way ahead of us, by eating with sticks.
"It's not likely that all these metal and chemical prices will go down suddenly."Take up banditry and piracy.
Chip making is already here in the USA.
TSMC is probably the largest and is building a fab in AZ.
Intel has fabs in OR, AZ and soon OH.
Samsung is number 3 but only manufactures in South Korea.
China is way behind the USA in chip design and fabrication.
At least 10 years.
So what is the reason for cost increases on EVERYTHING used in semi fab? Why didn’t supply and demand return to pre-pandemic levels?
They say necessity is the mother of invention.
Perhaps some enterprising young scientists will discover a better, less expensive method for making chips?
I saw a story a few days ago that Samsung was starting to put the brakes on production because they saw their markets collapsing.
What you lack in technology, you can make up for in patent violations.
(But, do work on your sense of humor.)
So why are so many unnecessary things invented.....just saying.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.