Title: Chip shortages are cramping car dealers, and consumers are paying the price
Headings: Chip shortages are cramping car dealers, and consumers are paying the price
Chip shortages are cramping car dealers, and consumers are paying the price
Content: It’s not just cars. The shortage is affecting hundreds of “smart” consumer products that have embedded computers. Martin himself was shocked to find he’d have to wait eight weeks for a new refrigerator. And broadband providers like Comcast are unable to get Internet routers to install in customers’ homes. Cars rely on specialized processors called microcontroller units, or MCUs. These are generally made by factories that manufacture all sorts of chips to order for various customers. The biggest such company, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., makes about 70 percent of the world’s automotive MCUs. But the units for cars are only about 3 percent of the company’s output; it sells far more to makers of cellphones and personal computers. “When COVID hit us about a year ago, the automotive guys canceled a lot of their orders,” said Phil Amsrud, a semiconductor analyst for ABI Research.