The ongoing global crisis due to shortage in supply of semiconductor chips is likely to last at least through next year and perhaps longer, US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo warned on Tuesday.
The shortage of chips has affected production of cars and other consumer electronics products. Many automobile manufacturess across the globe stopped productiion of cars. Lack of semiconductor chips has been problematic for many other industries. The Covid-19 pandemic too has affected the supplies chains.
"I do not unfortunately see the chip shortage abating in any meaningful way anytime in the next year," sai Raimondo afer her recent trip to Asia.
US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo | Reuters
Raimondo said she convened a dozen CEOs of chipmaking companies during her time in South Korea and they discussed ways to overcome the crisis. She sai, "and they all agreed that ... deep into 2023, possibly early '24 before we see any real relief."
Warning that we live on borrowed time, Raimondo urged Congress to approve funding to stimulate domestic manufacturing of the computer chips that are key to a wide array of products, from smartphones to medical equipment to vacuum cleaners.
"Every other country has subsidies on the table now, and if Congress doesn't act very quickly," key producers like Samsung, Intel and Micron "are going to build in another country and that be that would be hugely problematic," she said.
The US Senate and the House of Representatives each have approved $52 billion bills—the CHIPS Act and the America COMPETES Act—that would invest in domestic chip research and manufacturing, but so far have failed to agree on the final form of the legislationm, says AFP
