2021 laid bare how reliant the technology industry is on the factories that manufacture the tiny chips that power electronic devices, and the long-lasting repercussions of their scarcity.
Semiconductors, also known as silicon chips, act as the ‘brains’ of computing devices, controlling everything from smartphones, laptops and tablets to cars, washing machines, games consoles and satellites.
Like many other goods and products, pandemic restrictions forcing factories to close in spring last year hampered their production, but a unique combination of factors collided in what analyst Emile Naus has called “the perfect storm of everything that could possibly go wrong” to create a global shortage.
Increased demand for computing and gaming devices as the world worked, learned and played from home, in conjunction with global shipping delays, the soaring price of silicon (an essential chip element extracted from sand) and other chip components and trade disputes between China, Australia and the US exacerbated the crisis, while natural disasters in the form of a drought in Taiwan…