For the first few years of the global COVID-19 pandemic, there had been a chip shortage due to decreased supply and increased demand. Factories shut down toward the start of the pandemic, but demand for computers and other gadgets went up as people were told to stay at home for work and school.
Now the Wall Street Journal reports that that trend has reversed. There’s more supply than demand. Chip makers ramped up production just as PC and smartphone sales began to fall. And it could be a year or so before things level out. In the meantime, expect lots of sales as device makers try to clear out inventory.
Here’s a roundup of recent tech news from around the web.
Chip Inventories Swell as Consumers Buy Fewer Gadgets [Wall Street Journal]
The good news is that you may be able to find a wide range of products on sale for significant discounts in the coming months. The less good news is that I get the feeling that while the chip shortage may be over for large companies like Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, Samsung, and Apple, some smaller companies are still dealing with supply chain shortages – if you order a Purism Librem 5 Linux smartphone, for example, you’ll still have to wait 52 weeks for it to arrive.
Embedded, Mobile and Automotive dev room schedule [FOSDEM 23]
The FOSDEM 2023 conference is scheduled for February 4 and 5 and the schedule includes talks about mobile and embedded topics including convergent camera apps for mobile Linux, bringing voice over LTE support to smartphones running free and open source operating systems, and more.
LG Innotek reveals the Optical Telephoto Zoom Camera Module for the first time in CES [press release]
LG plans to show off a smartphone camera with a telephoto lens with optical zoom support for 4-9X zoom magnification (and any number in between).
Weekly GNU-like Mobile Linux Update [LinMob]
This week’s updates include the latest on Ubuntu Touch, Nemo Mobile, Sailfish OS, and other Linux distros (and apps and features) for mobile phones.
MNT Reform December 2022 Update [MNT]
Among other things, the update includes the latest look at a MNNT Pocket Reform handheld computer – under development for much of the year, the latest prototype includes aluminum case parts and custom keycaps. After testing of the prototype is completed, the tiny, open source, modular handheld computer will head to crowdfunding.
Geniatech DS-3566 digital signage board is powered by a Rockchip RK3566 SoC [CNX Software]
This new mini PC features a Rockchip RK3566 quad-core ARM Cortex-A55 processor with a 0.8 TOPS NPU, up to 8GB of RAM, up to 128GB of eMMC storage plus a microSD card slot, and a bunch of display interfaces as well as an Ethernet port and support for WiFI, Bluetooth, and optional support for 4G LTE.
Keep up on the latest headlines by following @[email protected] on Mastodon. You can also follow Liliputing on Twitter and Facebook, and keep up with the latest open source mobile news by following LinuxSmartphones on Twitter and Facebook.
Never was as much of a shortage as a shortage of companies adept at managing supply chains….ford cancelled orders, hyperscale companies took the capacity and long term commitment, excess inventory storm in TW….but still a shortage where sourcing people don’t know how to manage chip companies.
At the present time, there is not a chip glut. CPU’s, power mgmt, analog chips, sensors, and WiFi are still long lead time items. The glut is in passive and ELM devices. Get real.
Chip shortage over?…..now your dreaming….it’s getting worse!
The primary chip shortage in not in CPUs, but in the commodity chips that make up the support circuitry of most systems these days. There have been one of more foundries that have closed and there has been very little investment in new plants. This is because there is little profit to be made on these essential, but older tech chips. Even if there is a big investment in new foundries, they will take years to come online.
The idiots writing this stuff don’t have a clue, I can see it getting worse….
What products are you trying to buy? CPUs, graphics cards, motherboards, laptops all back in stock. There is some waiting for specific models, but no worse than pre-pandemic. Cars are easy to buy if you don’t mind paying over MSRP. TSMC is reporting a soft 1Q2023 with 15% underutilization. All the resellers are dumping their inventory. I see it as getting better every day going forward.
Korea shipped 15% less chips in november, suggesting curtailment. There was too much hoarding so curtailments are happening, but depends on chip type. Korea is flash and memory heavy.
Agree
To many chip are fatting on the buyers wallet, in a fare market. But since when has the consumer market been fare IMO 🎄🍑⛄