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  • TheinsanegamerN - Thursday, February 25, 2021 - link

    My father and I both ivnested part of our retirements into a fund that specializes in semiconductors and processor manufacturers. So far we've been doing great!
  • eva02langley - Thursday, February 25, 2021 - link

    My only regret was not buying more stocks in the past... I would have been able to retire... at 35...
  • Achaios - Thursday, February 25, 2021 - link

    "10% to 30% below current demand levels"

    If they say that, I am sure it's more like 50-60% below market demand.

    I mean, nobody owns a Radeon 6k GPU except Tech Journalists and youtubers like Linus Sebastian, and nobody knows any normal person who owns one.
  • eva02langley - Thursday, February 25, 2021 - link

    I own a 6900XT since the launch in December. I bought it from AMD.com at MSRP. It was one hell of a deal when you look at the current situation. It was available on AMD.com for a good hour.

    As for other opportunities, I would have been able to buy a 6900XT Phantom from ASROCK on newegg.ca for 3-5 days... the price was 400$ over MSRP, but it was possible.

    Still, I agree, the demand is WAY above 20-30%. It is probably around 100%.
  • Murloc - Thursday, February 25, 2021 - link

    GPUs are only a subset of the whole semiconductor market. It can be that they're 100%, and other bigger sectors are 10%.
  • haukionkannel - Friday, February 26, 2021 - link

    Exacly! GPUs Are very minor part of semiconduxtor market!
    And because They Are so minor, it is easier to cut production there that from other more important parts!
  • willis936 - Thursday, February 25, 2021 - link

    How did this happen? It's not like the profits are so low that they can't afford the risk of expanding capacity. Strategically, nothing has changed in over 10 years. They should be spending way more than they are on expansion.
  • eva02langley - Thursday, February 25, 2021 - link

    Too much demand, shipping issues, substrates for the manufacturing of semiconductors, new products...

    A perfect storm of a kind...
  • willis936 - Thursday, February 25, 2021 - link

    The lack of supply isn’t an issue from the past 12 months. It’s about not planning to expand production by the right amount 4 years ago.
  • Duncan Macdonald - Thursday, February 25, 2021 - link

    However 4 years ago who could have predicted the covid-19 pandemic with its huge effects on demand for laptops, tablets and consoles ?
  • willis936 - Thursday, February 25, 2021 - link

    This pandemic was widely predicted more than 10 years ago. Semantics aside, I don't buy the narrative that the pandemic is a primary driver of a disruptive increase in demand. People would be buying 7 nm GPUs even if they could hit the bars instead.
  • warreo - Thursday, February 25, 2021 - link

    In the words of Dr. Evil.

    Riiiiiight......
  • ballsystemlord - Thursday, February 25, 2021 - link

    BUT WHY are they buying 7nm GPUs? They could just ignore the offerings of AMD/Nvidia just like they have done for years. And, considering that the prices are currently far beyond what people were complaining about a year or two ago, they should be ignoring the cards.
  • willis936 - Thursday, February 25, 2021 - link

    Demand has been steadily increasing this entire time. People bought a lot of 10x0 nvidia GPUs, skipped the 20x0 series, then the absurdly performant 30x0 series came out. People want what they have wanted for the past 20 years: fast GPUs. They’re willing to spend more on that now (by dollar and by percentage of income) than they ever have.
  • Qasar - Thursday, February 25, 2021 - link

    " This pandemic was widely predicted more than 10 years ago. "
    id like to see some proof of this BS .
  • willis936 - Thursday, February 25, 2021 - link

    You could try looking first. It’s been borderline common knowledge that this would happen since 2005.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contagion_(2011_film...
  • Spunjji - Friday, February 26, 2021 - link

    Knowing that *a pandemic* would happen isn't the same as knowing *when* this one would happen and the exact effects it would have - whether it be on demand or supply lines.
  • willis936 - Friday, February 26, 2021 - link

    And? You don’t need to be Nostradamus and predict the year a pandemic will hit. Knowing one is coming in the next 5-10 years is enough information to plan strategically.
  • ikjadoon - Saturday, February 27, 2021 - link

    Someone help. ^^ thinks billion-dollar oligopoly corporations prioritize long-term profits over short-term victories.

    Fabs are a dying marketplace for competition; with less competition, you’ll see fewer risks and much less preparation for long-term market shifts.

    Get a grip. Nobody would bet billions on a biological event rooted in human behavior. That you think you would bet billions on that chance is giving me my morning laugh.
  • willis936 - Saturday, February 27, 2021 - link

    Have a laugh. Small minds look at small problems at small scales. You’re not thinking like the people who make these decisions.
  • ammaterasu - Saturday, February 27, 2021 - link

    oh please. my friend made a bundle betting against the stock market shortly after the wuhan lock-down. if you could really predict the pandemic, you'd make more money to retire a few lifetimes. how much did u make? ever heard of the saying "hindsight is 20/20?"

    It's so obvious you don't follow the semiconductor industry to think they could predict supply/demand way ahead of time when some companies don't have visibility beyond 1 quarter or 2. Did you know in early 2015 TSMC surprised the market with a strong market outlook only to meet industry wide inventory correction in less than 2 quarters? Did Nvidia see the crypto mining crash coming that they had to stop producing mid-range GPUs for a quarter.
  • ballsystemlord - Sunday, February 28, 2021 - link

    Did you just say, "Hindsight 2020?" :D
  • Holliday75 - Monday, March 1, 2021 - link

    Never mind the fact that the industries most people following this site are interested in require the latest lithography gear from ASML which has a 40+ unit backlog on orders. They cannot produce it fast enough to keep up with the industry.
  • Samus - Friday, February 26, 2021 - link

    As reported by the AP over the last year, basically factories scaled back for a few months at the beginning of the pandemic from PREDICTED demand reduction (when the opposite happened) and they have been playing catch-up since.
  • wr3zzz - Friday, February 26, 2021 - link

    UMC and Global Foundries lost their nerve by not wanting to invest in the $5-10bln needed to compete in sub10nm about 5 years ago. It was the kind of betting-the-farm decision that companies should've, could've separating the top companies from wannabes. SMIC had the aspiration to climb up but got knocked out by Trump two years ago. There goes your #3, #4 and #5 players.

    On the IDM front, Europe got knocked out by Covid19. Japanese/Korean have been very conservative in making new investments in DRAM/NAND because China was gonna pour billions into those two products. Trump knocked that out too.
  • ballsystemlord - Thursday, February 25, 2021 - link

    So, aside from GPUs and CPUs, why is everything in high demand? Why have VIS and Hua Hong seen such high opportunity for growth?
  • Samus - Friday, February 26, 2021 - link

    There is more demand because more things require electronics. Virtually every vehicle sold now uses some sort of radar\camera safety suite which requires processing power. Virtually every vehicle also has infotainment, which requires processing power. The semiconductor industry totally failed to realize demand would increase during the pandemic, not decrease like they predicted, because semiconductor manufactures are seemingly unaware of how diverse the application portfolio of the products they produce are.
  • ikjadoon - Saturday, February 27, 2021 - link

    Someone wisely wrote that virtually anything that uses electricity also has ICs inside.

    More people stay home, those people have more disposable income. You stay at home, you buy products for your home / yourself.

    CPUs/GPUs are the tip of the iceberg. Your basic motherboard alone likely has 10+ ICs.

    If it uses electricity, it probably has an IC in it today.
  • bsryan68 - Monday, March 1, 2021 - link

    Can't make enough tools that make the chips.. make more doughnuts, make more doughnuts... implanter doughnuts, diffusion doughnuts, align and expose doughnuts. Everyone is up to their eyeballs in orders.
  • Matthias B V - Saturday, March 6, 2021 - link

    GF should license TSMC 7nm TSMC as it is DUV and could probably be done on their scanners. They anyway have a cros-licencing with TSMC and in the past did similar with Samsung 14nm.

    Since PS5 / XBOX / Navi1+2 / Zen 2+3 all run on this node it would benefit everyone:

    - AMD sells more and gets market
    - TSMC can't sell more at max cap. so they don*t lose business so they could make extra $
    - GF can sell 7nm having a competiive node and get market share. (If they have spare capacity)
    - Customers get products

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