Published , by Ozzie Mejia
Published , by Ozzie Mejia
One of the big stories to emerge from the continuing COVID-19 pandemic has been the shortage of semiconductors. The component is critical to assembling a number of major electronics and is a key reason why the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and NVIDIA RTX 3080s may have proven difficult to find. The shortage has become so concerning that President Joe Biden is looking to get to the bottom of it, calling for an investigation via an executive order.
"Semiconductors play a critical role in enabling the products and services that fuel our economy, contribute to American innovation, and enhance our national security," reads a letter to the President (via GameSpot) from a collection of tech companies. Those companies include names like Apple, Sony, and AMD, as well as automotive groups, who are citing the need for semiconductors in the construction of electric automobiles.
The semiconductor storm has been brewing for a long time. Our own Chris Jarrard recently wrote a feature that succinctly explained the threat of a computer component shortage.
Our current chip famine cannot be attributed to a single event, but rather a mixture of conditions that have led to what will inevitably be the most impactful chip shortage the world has yet encountered. The largest contributing factors to the current situation are the COVID-19 pandemic and overreliance on outsourced semiconductor fabrication suppliers.
As with just about all aspects of everyday life, the COVID-19 pandemic had enormous consequences on semiconductor supply. As companies struggled with shifts in labor availability and logistical strategy alterations to accommodate health and safety concerns, production efficiency took a hit. The world couldn’t simply operate the same way it had prior to 2020.
What the investigation from President Biden's executive order will ultimately yield remains to be seen. But as our recent feature noted, there is no simple fix to this problem and the semiconductor shortage stands to impact the supply of major electronics, such as the iPhone 12, for the foreseeable future.