Looming Silicon Wafer Shortage

[sechs]

Looks like we're going to have to bend over a little more....

Nvidia GPU, Intel CPU, and AMD tech prices will skyrocket as silicon costs continue to soar

 

[LunarMist]

That is not much info. What percentage of the costs are the wafer, is the number of chips per wafer constant, does the density increase, etc.?

 

[sechs]

Does it really matter?

If manufacturer X wants to make a product, but has to pay more for the wafers, the product is going to cost more.

 

[ddrueding]

It matters if you want to speculate on the amount of the increase.

 

[Stereodude]

That is not much info. What percentage of the costs are the wafer, is the number of chips per wafer constant, does the density increase, etc.?

That depends on the product and the die size. The wafer may make up the a sizable cost on a low end Intel processor, but not much on a high end one even if the die is larger on the high end chip.

 

[Chewy509]

As a flow on effect, what will happen to the price of these IoT devices and things like Smart TV's, etc? I don't see most people being effected on the PC/tablet side of things (due to the slow replacement rate), but more of the everyday appliances that all seem to want to have some "smarts" about them. (Just about everything sold these days has some sort of SoC/Processor in it - even basic kids toys and some adult toys as well).

Or will we see a trend reversal of more "dumb" appliances entering the market again (as a way to keep appliance costs low), eg mainly for washing machines, dishwashers, TVs, etc...

 

[LunarMist]

That depends on the product and the die size. The wafer may make up the a sizable cost on a low end Intel processor, but not much on a high end one even if the die is larger on the high end chip.

So the NANDs and DDRs will increase but the CoffeLakes and X CPUs not so much?

 

[Stereodude]

Maybe. My point was more that the wafer cost might be significant portion of the price on a $100 Celeron, but not on a $2k Xeon.

 

[LunarMist]

So it will be 6AM on Christmas. No sleep for 40 hours? Even Santa needs a break.:santa:

 

[sechs]

So the NANDs and DDRs will increase but the CoffeLakes and X CPUs not so much?

That sounds right to me. The more commoditized the market, the greater the effect this will have on prices.