The two chip manufacturers AMD and Nvidia do not assume that the lack of chips and thus the poor availability of many processors and graphics cards will be remedied in the short term. AMD’s CEO Lisa Su spoke in an interview of a tense delivery situation in the entire first half of the year , Nvidia’s chief financial officer Colette Kress from short stocks to at least into the second quarter.

The website Venturebeat spoke to Su on the occasion of the consumer electronics fair CES 2021: “We are seeing tension in the substrate market. exceeds global capacity. Investments are being made in more capacity, including investments from AMD. But it will take time before these capacities will be available, “said Su. This is a broad problem that the entire industry is counteracting.

Carrier shortage All CPUs and GPUs sit on carriers before they are soldered on a circuit board (graphics cards, mobile processors) or in a CPU Such substrates consist of many layers, including insulating foils from the Japanese company Ajinomoto, which are laminated to a base board in layers as “Ajinomoto Build-up Film” (ABF).

Without a carrier or substrate, no finished processor or graphics card – among other things, there is a defect.

(Fig : c’t)

The website Digitimes wrote in early January that There is still a shortage of such ABF films in Taiwan, including w as the demand for processors in cars is increasing. A lack of silicon chips for infotainment systems is currently causing a standstill in German car production.

Nvidia’s chief financial officer Kress spoke at an investor conference (transcript at Seekingalpha ) more generally of a demand that exceeds supply. The delivery situation of own GeForce Founder Editions and manufacturer cards is expected to remain tense for the entire first quarter 2021. Kress did not give the all-clear for the time after that.

(mma)