Chip company executives say semiconductor shortage likely to last beyond the second half

For chip buyers ranging from computer gamers to carmakers, there is no near-term fix on the way for shortages that have caused higher prices and production delays, semiconductor executives said.

Nvidia, which makes chips that are the basis of graphics cards selling for thousands of dollars more than their retail prices, sees some improvement in supply in the second half of the year, Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress said Wednesday at the J.P. Morgan Tech/Auto Forum.

Her comments led a string of presentations by other executives that similarly repeated their chip companies’ outlook for when supply and demand might reach some sort of balance. The bottom line is that most companies do not see any improvement before the middle of 2022, and many are saying not even then.

Like other chip makers who outsource their production, Nvidia has struggled to secure enough supply to meet demand. That bottleneck has hurt even the largest companies. Apple for example, has said it missed out on more than US$6 billion of revenue last quarter because it could not get enough components.

For one of the companies that provides contract wafer manufacturing, GlobalFoundries, the surge in uses for chips coupled with the time it takes to increase capacity, means that this year will offer scant relief.

“It’s hard to imagine over the next two years a point where we don’t speak about supply issues,” CEO Tom Caulfield said during his appearance at the forum. “I don’t see any relief in 2022.”

Carmakers have missed out on billions of dollars in revenue because they could not get the electronic components that are central to their products. Some of the industry’s chip suppliers stuck to a cautious outlook about when they will be able to fill orders more quickly.