Intel CEO: Chip shortage will get worse

From Transport Topics.

Intel Corp. CEO Pat Gelsinger predicted the shortage of semiconductors that’s hurting industries from automotive to consumer electronics will bottom out in the second half of this year before starting to improve.

“I don’t expect the chip industry is back to a healthy supply-demand situation until ’23,” he said in an interview. “For a variety of industries, I think it’s still getting worse before it gets better.”

The economy’s rebound from the depths of the pandemic has caused a flood of demand for the components that are the heart of all modern electronics. Lockdowns and changes in the way that large chunks of the world’s population work have sped up a shift to digital systems that has further stretched the semiconductor industry’s ability to keep up with the flood of orders, according to Gelsinger.

Intel, the world’s largest chipmaker, gets the majority of its sales from providing processors that run personal computers and servers, machines that are central to data centers and corporate networks. Gelsinger said Intel’s ownership of its factories has left it better placed to keep up with demand than other companies that outsource production, but supply of the other components of computers has fallen short.

Longer term, the chip industry is positioned for a period of growth, Gelsinger predicted. Over the next decade, the increasing uses for chips — including 5G phone systems, electric vehicles and expanded artificial intelligence — will drive strong demand, he said.

That view makes Intel’s CEO a leading voice among executives who are arguing that the current boom in demand for chips is more than just a short-lived supply crunch that will inevitably lead into another of the industry’s periodic cyclical slumps. Others are less sold on the idea that the industry can continue to grow more than 5% annually as Gelsinger and some suggest.

See the complete article online at Transport Topics.