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Japanese Chip Shutdown Causing Shortages
An anonymous reader writes "Japan's natural disasters and nuclear crisis have already caused silicon wafer shortages that are rippling through the global supply chain of semiconductors for everything from your garden variety PC to the biggest Google server farm. The earthquake and tsunami in Japan have shut down 25 percent of the global semiconductor raw materials production, threatening to cause shortages and price hikes in everything from smartphones to supercomputers. Intel and Qualcomm are countering that they have stockpiles and alternative manufacturing plants that can pick up the slack, but dozens of other electronics makers require critical components only manufactured in Japan."
People trapped and dying.
Let's worry about how much our next next motherboard will cost.
Don't forget : Cars
Goatse troll. Someone mod this troll down and ban his slashdot account please.
You do that. The rest of us can think about more than one thing at a time.
...but dozens of other electronics makers require critical components only manufactured in Japan."
What could these critical components be really? Just want to know. With this datum, can someone convince me that Japan is manufacturing these components because it's cheaper than to manufacture them in the USA?
US based venture capitalists, step in and do something here. You will be handsomely rewarded.
Say Detroit. Some redundancy would be beneficial, don't you think?
I bet there's plenty of available buildings too.
Japan has been known to disaster-prone for how long exactly? And you don't have reliable alternate streams for your critical components? Cry me a fucking river - I'll sing you a sad song.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
the game
damn you!
Like the 95 Kobe quake they had when all monitor guys, including those outside of Japan, suddenly started complaining about the shortage of glass. Later turned out that there was only one fab that was affected and it was Ikegami and they were only doing one type of consumer TV tube. Keep in mind, the earthquake shut down not only supply but a great bit of demand... Cui Bono, eh?!
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
Agreed.
In fact, wasn't there a post on Slashdot regarding the affected industry? Or maybe I heard it on the news.
Only 4% of Japans economy was affected by the Earthquake, the rest of the country kept right on working.
So 4% = 25% of the worlds chip makers?
Hello, I'm no nuculear specialist or anything, so I want to know if there is any chance of PC parts with japanese components (capacitors and stuff) shipping with radioactive particles on them from now on.
I want all those extra FPS's...but i don't want my PC to be something to DIE for!
Specifically, the one who pushed "Just In Time" for the manufacturer where I worked way back when.
Me: "But what about catastrophic incidents with a supplier or entire region?"
Consultant: "It doesn't happen like that. If one supplier goes down, we get from another. Entire sectors don't go down at once."
After 10 years I can now call him up and say "Ha! I told you so!"
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Its clearly a HARDWARE story
See, this shows how the US has things figured out. If we have a catastrophic natural disaster in the US, we won't run into this problem, because we were smart enough to make sure that we don't manufacture anything here.
the entire business system of the world has been moving to 'just in time' / outsourcing, from airplanes to electronics to finance itself (mortgages).
the claim is 'higher efficiences' and 'lower costs' (arbitrage im guessing is in there somewhere).
when people talk about risks, they dont get listened to becasue they are basically saying 'we need to cut fewer costs' i.e. 'we need to make less short term profit'.
in some industries, failure to be number 1 or 2 = complete and total failure, at least amongst certain types of people who see things that way.
You can curse me, but that won't change the fact that you are now blinking manually.
No, then the unions will cause the chips to cost 4X as much..
Haven't you learned?
The only way to win is not to play.
Taiwan manufactured some crucial part of DRAM then. So when factories closed for four months after a large 1998 quake, DRAM prices actually increased the following two years.
> dozens of other electronics makers require critical components only manufactured in Japan.
Where exactly were they supposed to source these, again?
If that 4% included one of four silicon wafer manufacturers, then yes. Chip makers buy their wafers from companies that refine the sand and grow the ingots and saw the wafers from them. It's a very specialized business to make the wafers at the tolerances needed for modern chipmaking. Totally not unreasonable for a quarter of the world's capacity to be in one small area.
Another fucking goatse troll.
That's ok, it's better than the patent lawsuits. I'd rather union workers have the money than lawyers.
So far the only major tech companies really known to be affected are:
Sony's camera division which has halted its assembly lines due to the rolling blackouts, it is concidering shifting production to other facilities temporarily.
Toshiba's LSI plant is offline they hope to be back up and running in about 3 weeks, they are offline due to damaged equipment. They have switched to alternate facitiles for its small screen manufacturing and do not expect shortages.
Canon's domestic camera production is offline due to a shortage of on hand parts but hopes to be back up and running by the end of this week.
Nikon has 4 plants that are offline but they are for its precision equipment division its camera and consumer products plants are in Taiwan.
Panasonic has several plants that handle optical sensors and camera gear offline in northern Japan there is no major damage but say they are waiting on infrastructure repair before resuming production.
Renesas Electronics, has resumed operations at their biggest plant of the seven affected but another six are offline, 15 of their other plants in japan are still up and running and were not affected by the Tsunami.
Shin-Etsu Chemical, the silicon wafer manufacturer that everyone is talking about has 2 of their plants offline but are trying to boost production at other plants to make up for any shortfalls.
And to think, all this time I thought the only way to play was not to win!
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
And, in hindsight, I missed the obviously superior Soviet Russia joke. The preview button exists for a reason, kids!
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
Bear in mind some of those plants are required to supply other wafer plants. notably Intel's Ivy Bridge (22nm) plans are believed to be affected by Nikon's issues. There are some domino effects to consider.
and breathing manually.
I really should have done that myself. +1 Informative to you.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Why do the tags for this article include a company that was not mentioned? Could it be that tomorrow we will find out that Apple Tablets have one of these critical components being manufactured there? Why would you not include this info in the article if so? Wonder where the stock options are going on that, :P
Read similar stories with these tags
tsunami japan apple
it's like the difference between having unbuffered video stream and a buffered video stream on your youtube video.
if its unbuffered, you might get interruptions and hiccups in delivery, which destroy the experience.
if you have buffering, it costs more resources, more memory, more code, etc, but you are guaranteed less interruption.
now we are talking about big industries instead of a video on youtube, so people feel the impact harder, and if it is the food pipleine, people will start rioting in the street.
many oil producers keep strategic reserves on hand, am i right? its like inventory, its wasteful but they do it to smooth out the bumps in the road.
Is this similar to the bogus announcements of oil shortages caused by the gulf spill to raise prices at the pump (when it wasn't true -- shortly
after a oil&media induced buying spree on a price run-up, prices dropped severely as there there was no shortage, and everyone had run on gas to buy it up before it 'ran out' -- it did (at the high prices), was replaced by gas costing 30% less...*cough*...
Chips, made in Japan? How many US suppliers get them from Japan and not China or such? I'm sure there are some, but how much is being 'pumped up' as a way to push up profits?
Try Moderatrix, It works for me.
Star Trek, there maybe hope.
The only factory making HDCAM tape is in Sendai, 80 miles from the quake. The plant is flooded, and not expected on-line for a while. TV producers are going nuts trying to find stock.
http://www.tvtechnology.com/article/115604
iSuppli
http://www.isuppli.com/MEMS-and-Sensors/News/Pages/Japans-Digital-Compass-Makers-Work-to-Maintain-Supply-Amid-Earthquake-Aftermath.aspx
MGC
http://www.mgc.co.jp/eng/news/2011/pdf/110318-2_e.pdf
Shin-Etsu
http://www.shinetsu.co.jp/e/news/s20110322.shtml
Renesas
http://am.renesas.com/press/notices/notice20110322.html
MEMC
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/memc-update-following-japan-earthquake-118003244.html
Hitachi
http://www.hitachi.com/New/cnews/f_110317h.pdf
Fujitsu
http://www.fujitsu.com/global/news/pr/archives/month/2011/20110314-01.html
Look, nearly 10,000 people are dead so far from the earthquake and tsunami. They were truly cataclysmic events. From the trouble at Fukushima? None. Can the anti-nuke hysteria.
The real disruption is from the earthquake and tsunami. Period. The nuclear scare is really only affecting a narrow area, unless you happen to be trying to export/import produce from the near proximity of Fukushima. That's not affecting chip sales.
Last week when the story was posted of "US Alarmed Over Japan's Nuclear Crisis" - http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/11/03/17/0343230/US-Alarmed-Over-Japans-Nuclear-Crisis - I was marked down as "0 - Troll" for saying "Given Japan's position as the third biggest economy in the world and the amount that they produce which is exported to the rest of the world, as well as their technological knowledge, I think we should all be massively concerned about the impact that will be had on the rest of the world..." Does this story now appearing about prices hikes, shortages etc show me to have been right after all?
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It made it sound like there was chip failure everywhere, as machines were not functioning because of faulty chips designed and sent out from japan, due to the nuclear crisis.....then i reread what they were saying in the description, and wow, talk about misleading your readers.
Sure there will be shortages of stuff from japan fro a while, they are still dealing with a massive disaster, would you expect haiti to send you out all your clothing goods you got made over there, if half the country is still living in small tents...???
In Soviet Russia, submit button previews you!
Japanese people are worried about their family members, loved ones, and friends which where the missing are probably doing to turn up dead and all we're worried about how we'll get our next shiny new toy.