Executives from Intel, Nvidia, and TSMC say the global chip shortage will likely continue at least into 2022 and maybe into 2023
and why it's so hard to fix Charlesarthur / The Overspill : Start Up No.1529: chip shortage to last to 2023?, Google Earth shows climate change, NFT sales go crazy, new iMacs next week?, and more Liam Tung / ZDNet : TSMC sees chip constraints through 2022, will spend $100bn on boosting capacity Jenny Darmody / Silicon Republic : Global chip shortage could last for ‘a couple of years’ Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE : Intel and TSMC CEOs say global chip shortage will drag on until 2023 iTnews : Taiwan's TSMC sees chip shortage lasting into 2022 Carly Page / TechRadar : Chip maker has bad news for those hoping to buy an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 in 2021 Mark Hachman / PCWorld : Chip shortages will continue until 2023, superfoundry TSMC says Tweets: James Hand-Cukierman / @jimhandc : “It's like, 'If I can't get enough chips and components, I don't want anyone, especially my rivals, to get enough of them, either,” a computer industry executive told @ChengTingFang and @Lauly_Th_Li for this great story on the semiconductor shortage. https://asia.nikkei.com/... @globalfoundries : We are doing everything we can to address the #semiconductor supply-demand imbalance head-on, including doubling our planned investments this year to expand capacity in each our sites, as GF CEO Tom Caulfield told @donal888 at the @nytimes. https://www.nytimes.com/... Steve Streeting / @stevestreeting : First world problems, but sheesh. https://arstechnica.com/... Matthew S. Smith / @matt_on_tech : Yea this is going to be happening for...well, just assume it's going to be happening forever at this point. At least you won't be disappointed. https://arstechnica.com/... David Chapman / @meaningness : Chip shortage explanations haven't made sense to me, quantitatively. This does. (h/t the very smart @doxanotes ) https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... https://twitter.com/... @ps5updatesuk : Well this isn't promising news :( https://arstechnica.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The initial industry warning was followed by a more differentiated picture: TSMC later expected automotive-chip shortages to ease while the broader constraint persisted, separating a localized recovery from the wider semiconductor supply squeeze.
Later reports reinforced the duration problem. The Commerce Department’s supply-chain survey still pointed to constraints in the second half of 2022, and Intel subsequently tied a possible extension into 2024 to manufacturing-equipment availability.
First-order effects
- TSMC’s planned $100 billion capacity push and GlobalFoundries’ decision to double planned investment turn the shortage outlook into an immediate capital-allocation response by chip manufacturers.
- Intel, Nvidia, and their customers must plan around constrained chip availability beyond a short disruption, rather than treating supply as a near-term normalization.
Second-order effects
- Capacity expansion shifts pressure upstream to manufacturing-equipment supply; Intel’s later warning of a shortage extending toward 2024 identifies equipment availability as a constraint on how quickly new output can arrive.
- The later Commerce Department supply-chain assessment gives buyers and policymakers an independent basis for treating the bottleneck as broad-based, not limited to a single chipmaker or end market.
Third-order effects
- Repeated extensions of the shortage timeline point to a semiconductor market in which fabrication capacity and the equipment required to add it adjust more slowly than demand, increasing the strategic value of long-term supply planning.
- If manufacturers continue to respond primarily with large, multi-year expansion programs, supply access will increasingly be shaped by contracted capacity and upstream equipment allocation rather than spot availability.
The trend: The chip shortage is part of a semiconductor capacity-lag cycle in which demand shocks outpace the multi-stage process of adding fabrication and equipment capacity.