What you need to know
- The global chip shortage has been causing big trouble for PC part makers, automobile manufacturers, and every type of company in between.
- AMD CEO Lisa Su has expressed confidence that late 2022 supply volumes will look better.
- The projected increase in supply is being attributed to chip factories that are currently being built.
A lot of the world is getting very worked up over chips. The U.S. and China are in a chipmaking war, governments are making public decrees about their plans to combat chip shortages, and companies are investing more than ever in bolstering semiconductor capabilities to stop entire industries from fighting with each other.
Speaking at the Code Conference, AMD CEO Lisa Su said that early 2022 would be rough but that overall supply levels should be better by later that year thanks to the work that's being put in by various companies to combat shortages (via CNBC).
"It might take, you know, 18 to 24 months to put on a new plant, and in some cases even longer than that," Su stated, citing the efforts of companies like Intel that have been working on ways to combat chip supply problems throughout 2020 and 2021. These efforts take time to develop, as we're seeing with the long-since-announced $20 billion two-fab deal that Intel has just finally begun physically construction on in Arizona.
With these sorts of timelines in mind, Su expressed confidence things will get better by the end of next year. She linked the pandemic to the spike in consumer demand, which has exacerbated supply production difficulties also brought about by coronavirus, including key assembly lines shuttering in Malaysia and Vietnam.
The end of 2022 is still a long way off for those currently unable to buy the best graphics cards due to current shortages, as it is for the starved auto industry currently squabbling with phone makers over the latter's chip supplies.
