AMD says it’s doing ‘everything possible’ to mitigate chip scarcity, has made ‘significant investments’ in provide chain

American semiconductor firm Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) says it’s doing every little thing doable “to drive global semiconductor availability”.
“We have made significant investments in just about every element of our supply chain to ensure we are not just able to get the supply that we think that we need, but also investing to build additional capacity for our suppliers,” David McAfee, Corporate VP, Product Management and Marketing at AMD informed indianexpress.com in a name from Austin, Texas. “It’s something that has been an enormous focus area,” McAfee added.
A worldwide semiconductor scarcity of chips has impacted every little thing from PCs and cars to recreation consoles. Global demand for chips, the “brain” inside a wide range of digital merchandise, is much exceeding the availability with the pandemic altering use instances in some ways.
As one of many world’s main chipmakers, AMD makes processors that energy private computer systems, online game consoles like PS5 and Xbox Series X and knowledge facilities. (Image Source: AMD)
As one of many world’s main chipmakers, AMD makes processors that energy private computer systems, online game consoles like PS5 and Xbox Series X and knowledge facilities. As the explosive demand in PCs first grew to become seen within the early days of the pandemic, McAfee stated one of many steps AMD took “was to go source more capacity in every step of the supply chain, making investments on a very significant scale globally to ensure that we can drive as much demand for products”.
Accepting that extra must be accomplished, McAfee stated that whereas the semiconductor scarcity is an impediment, the demand for PCs is past what the worldwide semiconductor business can cater to.

The pandemic has woken up the PC section that had plateaued for a few years. Since distant work and studying aren’t going away quickly, the demand for PCs from companies, faculties and shoppers is more likely to stay excessive. According to analysis from IDC, worldwide shipments of PCs, which incorporates desktops, notebooks, and workstations, reached 83.6 million models in 2Q21. But the worldwide scarcity of pc chips threatens to decelerate the PC market in its golden second.
“Prior to the Covid, the PC industry was going through a period of slow innovation,” he stated, including that the pandemic has helped within the explosion in demand for PCs globally. “PCs now are far more premium and far more capable than the world was historically buying,” McAfee stated. “We’ve seen more growth in gaming PCs, for instance, over the past 18 months than we ever would have imagined.”
While chipmakers like AMD are pushing exhausting to beat the extended scarcity of chips by rising manufacturing, the reality is that constructing new capability takes years. (Image Source: AMD)
While chipmakers like AMD are pushing exhausting to beat the extended scarcity of chips by rising manufacturing, the reality is that constructing new capability takes years. A chip takes so long as three to 4 months to develop, and it entails a high-tech course of that may solely be accomplished at specialised chip fabs. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is the world’s largest foundry that counts main expertise corporations similar to Apple, Qualcomm and AMD as its purchasers. The drawback is there are only a few chip fabs on the earth and people too are concentrated in Asia. The US needs to alter that, and is encouraging corporations like Intel, the world’s largest chip maker, to take a position extra in home semiconductor manufacturing. Experts are warning that the worldwide chip scarcity might final till 2023.
“The job for AMD has been to invest in silicon capacity and manufacturing capacity and every step of the supply chain to drive as many potential suppliers as we possibly can,” he stated. “How do we fill this gap as quickly as possible and make sure all of the pieces are in place to try to sustain the demand that the world has for PCs, because it’s become such an important part of people’s lives today.”