Let's talk about computers

I think that the problem doesn’t necesserily lie in shortage of nvidia or amd chips, but more in other smaller components, atleast that’s what I’m reading out of that particular article. And according to some articles there’s still a 4 month back log on components and if you count in shortage of raw materials, plus most smaller components are universally used in all consumer electronics, you get the price hike.

Capacitors, resistors, inductors are “consumeables” like solder is.

The only components that may be more problematic are VRM-parts (Powerstages, Hi-&Low-side MOSFETs etc.) and VRAM (GDDR of some flavour).


To my knowledge, it is only the GPU chips themself being in short supply.


Cost-wise: Yes, seafreight has increased in price (because they can) and airfreight has gone through the roof (because passenger planes are not flying).

Import tarifs to the EU have not changed, can’t speak for the US.

This is what i found on Reuters https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-chip-shortage-analysis-idUKKBN28R0ZL

Just one point on this: the number of Fabs all the silicon is made has reduced, a GF has moved out of the “shrink it as you can” game. This means the crazy demand competition inside AMD products (Ryzen vs Radeon vs Console ASICs) will also affect other products. Biggers companies like Apple and Qualcomm don’t like this kind of difficulty, and they have money to guarantee their fab space.

And specifically, when it comes to GPU, I imagine both AMD and Nvidia also have reserves on how to order their products or invest too heavily in fabrication. During the last mining crazy, they went all out and this backlashed them back in a decrease in market value. So a imagine they’re cautious about investing too much in an increase in demand they see as “temporarily”.

Don’t know how much is only on GPUs. Beginning last year things were so scarce that PCBs were missing because of a lack of copper. And I can say from experience that Q4 last year suffered from a shortage of flash memory for the “lower-end” models. So I think the problem is broader than it may seem.

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Makes sense. All the specialised chips (wireless, processors, etc.) are all smaller margins than x86 CPUs or GPUs. So AMD, Nvidia and Intel can afford to outbid the competition.

GloFo moving away from the bleeding edge has reduced count of fabs, I don’t have numbers to say if that affected capacity at all though (especially since Samsung and TSMC have been investing a lot into more fabs).

Let me correct myself: With GF out, the number of fabs in HPC and lower nodes have reduced. And I can’t pinpoint specifics for non-disclosure reasons, but I heard of some struggles from Samsung in the development of their 7nm node.

Each node shrink is costing more and more to fabs, and the number of chips that want these nodes is increasing. Now add to this the monstrous amount of money need to build a new fab like this, and the billion more to run it with specialized workers and made to order machines, and you gain a picture of how grim the situation looks like. Don’t know what the future holds, but either we need to get more fabs on the lower nodes, or we need to design around needing these very specialized techs. But that’s just the designer inside me talking =P

So has everyone. And they are not alone. Intel had huge issues with 14nm back when, and now can’t get 7nm working either.

You would be surprised how “off the shelf” the machines are. It is the process they run that is extremely high tech.
ASML is one such foundry supplier


That is not happening. “Smart” is forcefully stuffed into everything (WHY?!)
We reached peak-toaster in the 1960s:

Not with EUV. All the machines are "made to order’ which means: the design in itself is “fixed”, but they are only assembled on demand, it’s not exactly “line production”. This is understandable as just assembling these machines take expensive items with high precision, together with a lot of calibration and tweaking by very specialized workers.

What I mean by that is more on an ASIC design level, not at a system design level. Although I agree with you that this “smart everything” mentality is not helpful or needed.

Usually, digital chips are more “architecture focus”, let’s say, and it’s part of the design flow to found a node process that best fits its requirements. This with the mentality of “first to market” is what pushes node shrink so heavily IMO. Now granted, I’m an analog designer and our design flow has a lot less of that because porting something (a.k.a. changing fab technology) is either impossible or “return to 2nd step of the project”.

I think you’d be surprised.

Is not super impressive, honestly.
It is well built and all, just not super impressive…

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Oh, if only the best gear in our hobby topped out at $500…

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The only thing missing is the egg cooker then I would think about it.I love good breakfast :grin:

Same. Having an “adjustable pressure” panani-press is 90% the way to that Mitsubishi toaster though. Ideal for a breakfast sandwich :smiley:

Do you have a link?:grin:

I don’t. Is one of those “found in the back of the cupboard”-devices my mother bought a while ago.
Branding has worn off and the stickers yellowed beyond legibility.

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Too bad,
My wife still has one from her grandmother from 1970 approx. We haven’t tested it yet because it has a Swiss plug :see_no_evil:.

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You mean a Japanese, All-in-one automatic bacon cooker, don’t you??

No, I meant that the only thing missing from the Japanese toaster is the perfect egg boiler.
Bacon is fried in a pan for good taste :tongue:

But we drift a bit from the computer to the toaster and on.
Unless they are computer controlled :innocent:.

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I will get the same amount again as the day my fam ordered it back then, and with that being done I will go for a brand that has a lot of stock instead of Colorful again. I mean even my dad is getting impatient about it as well and the guy is willing to help me finding a possible replacement for it as well once we have decided a refund and accepted the request.

Eeeeey

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