[PLUG-TALK] US automobile chip "shortage"

[Keith Lofstrom]

The "chip shortage" slowing US auto manufacturing is a 
combination of the stupidity, dishonesty, and incompetence
of auto industry management.  See this article in IEEE
Spectrum:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/chip-shortage

The "chips" in question are the relatively inexpensive analog
high voltage chips that control and convert electrical power.
Those are made with "trailing edge 4000 nanometer" processes
on older production lines.  Cars use a lot of them; cheaper
than relays and gears.  CPUs and RAM chips use 7 nanometer
processes, perhaps 300,000 times denser per area.

When the pandemic hit, auto sales plummeted, and auto makers
stupidly cancelled long-term contracts for analog chips for
those cars. 

Fortunately for those analog chip makers, the pandemic caused
computer sales to soar.  The computer (and smart phone and
display and ...) companies now use all the production capacity
of the analog chip factories, both for current use, and also
stockpiling extra chips Just In Case.  Unlike Detroit, the
digital companies won't risk shortages of 20 cent components
preventing thousand-dollar sales.

BTW, the analog chip factories use old, low-cost production 
equipment, much of it no longer produced.  Building more
analog chip factories requires building more equipment
factories to produce more "vintage" equipment.  If Detroit
wants more chips, they should learn to produce chip equipment.

The wild card is China.  They make 4000 nanometer analog chips
as well ... with low yield and low reliability.  Some Chinese
makers will make counterfeit analog chips for Detroit.  Cars
will fail, safety systems won't work, people will die.  Then
the US auto industry will die ... from self-inflicted wounds.

US chip makers will be blamed, of course.  Even chip makers
like IBM and Intel, which produce ultra-expensive high-tech
chips using very different processes and very expensive tools.
(Potential) government demands that Intel produce power chips
would be like requiring Cessna to build coal power plants.

No problem is too big for the government to make even worse.
Expect to see much misinformed journalism, and technology-
ignorant politicians (like Blumenauer, sadly) passing bills
that could derail the US chip industry. 

The journalists at IEEE Spectrum magazine are well informed. 
As an IEEE member, I (and 400,000 others) get the print
magazine, but everyone can read the articles online. 
Please do; many articles may seem too technical for you,
but some of the information will stick.

If "we the people" educate ourselves, we can push politicians
to do the right things rather than dumb things.   Our jobs
and our pensions depend on intelligent corporate leadership;
we can vote stupid company leaders out of office as well. 
But first we must learn what stupid smells like.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com