Office bearers of Samsung Electronics have decided to take part in the White House meeting which is to be held later this month with the hope to come up with ways by which the increasing shortage of the global chip. It is expected that other firms working in this industry would also turn up in order to cope with this shortage. Although the date of the meeting is yet to be finalized, names of the participating firms were declared by an official working under Samsung Electronics via a Bloomberg report published on the 1st of April.
As per the report, top companies manufacturing chips like General Motors and the Global Foundries have scheduled meetings with Jake Sullivan, the Advisor of the U.S. National Security, and Brian Deese, Director of the National Economic Council. The Bloomberg report also confirms the fact that the White House, in association with Congress and other foreign allies, is trying hard to meet the shortage.
This huge shortage of semiconductors can be traced back to the outbreak of COVID-19. During the pandemic, the demand for electronic gadgets reached its peak as the traditional medium of working and teaching got converted into a modern zero-contact method of online working.
The shortage which the electronic device makers are experiencing was initially experienced by the car manufacturers during the COVID-19 outbreak as people started arranging their personal means of transport in order to safeguard themselves from the virus. Although large-scale chip suppliers, including Samsung, have increased their production of the chip, it demands an ample amount of time in order to get over this shortage.
Companies like Taiwan’s TSMC, Intel, and Samsung have reacted immediately and had already come up with ways to meet the increasing demand for the chips. While Taiwan’s TSMC and Samsung are building a plant in Arizona worth $12 billion, Intel, on the other hand, intends to build two manufacturing plants in Arizona which will require an investment of $20 billion. Samsung too is on its way to expand its chip manufacturing plant situated in Austin, Texas to increase the supply of chips to meet the immediate demands. The company will invest a huge sum of $17 billion in order to enlarge its chip production. In addition to this, the U.S. government has also come up with a plan to provide incentives to set up cheap manufacturing companies in the State.
One of the chip manufacturing plants by Renesas, the Japanese company responsible for supplying 30 percent of chips worldwide, located in Hitachinaka, was hit by a fire last month. The company said that it would need at least 3-4 months to be back with the previous supply. Hence, it can be estimated that the increasing shortage of chips will continue. Along with Renesas tragedy, Texas, too, got hit a snowstorm earlier this year, which made the power supply abrupt as a result of which large scale manufacturing companies like NXP, Infineon, and Samsung had to stall their productions for multiple weeks. Thus, it can be assumed from the current situation that the shortage will tend to continue throughout this year.
