Shortage Now Also Pushes Wafer Prices Upwards
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cryohellinc
This all starts to sound like some form of Industry-Wide cartel agreement.
XP-200
I don't undertand, in my local BM there have plenty of wafers, yes they are pink, but still they have plenty.:p
Spider4423
First HDD then RAM...
fantaskarsef
HDD was because they had too much water (flooding), now it's because of too little... the sad part is, the money this costs more will not be invested to prevent such conditions in the future, because then they can charge more again.
fOrTy_7
I wonder when cryptocurrency gold rush will start to affect coal prices 😀
But seriously those cryptocurrencies should be regulated by governments.
Right know it is a great opportunity for criminals to laundry money and avoid paying taxes.
cryohellinc
This^
Texter
After a ~20% wafer price increase, the fabs can charge customers e.g. $5k PLUS ONE DOLLAR per etched wafer...all the real price hikes won't come from the 'raw' supply side of things...wafers cost next to nothing, especially once you order them by the tens of thousands a week.
NaturalViolence
I don't get this kneejerk reaction this community has to any news like this being part of some global conspiracy against consumers. How exactly do you guys think capitalism works? Are they supposed to NOT raise prices when the product demand goes up so that the shortages get even worse while they lose money? Should they just stop building fabs so that their competitors pass them and they go out of business that way you can temporarily see $2 lower prices on your cpus? Seriously, why does any news about prices going up on anything immediately create this type of reaction anywhere online.
fantaskarsef
Easily explained: people don't want to pay more. I'm surprised you need one to point that out since the rest of your post is actually quite reasonable.
anxious_f0x
As someone who works in the industry of semiconductor Crystal growth, I can tell you that the whole process of growing crystals with enough in spec material really isn’t easy, it’s a dark art growing these things and then there’s the process of cutting and polishing the wafers that can lead to further loss of good wafers.
On the plus side a couple of good runs can put you right back on track.
sammarbella
There is certainly no excuses shortage for another price increase.
LOL
Silva
Supply and Demand works well to set prices. I have no problem with prices rising from high demand.
The REAL problem is that they make profit from said rising prices, and don't extend the production lines.
By keeping the money on their pockets, they choke the market, evolution and the less fortunate that can't afford the rising prices.
If they invested on more fabs, they could make more money (on the long term), cement their market position as bigger companies and help poor people afford the products by keeping the price low.
It's just pure greed. HDD's I understand, it was a natural disaster. The price has come down a little since.
DDR4 I half understand, putting 512Gb on phones is fucking stupid for a girl to take pics on her new iphone but whatever. Why not use the extra profit to build new or re-qualify old fabs?
Embra
The demand is only going to become higher., much higher. All the mobile devices, cars are going to be totally computerized, ......etc.
Prince Valiant
Why do you think that capitalism is about screwing the customer and sucking up as much money as possible? There are laws that try to prevent that for a reason.
sammarbella
I fixed it for you...:D
Prince Valiant
Good point :P.
D3M1G0D
It takes time to expand production and get new fabs up and running. Also, companies don't want to be stuck in a situation where they've overproduced or overextended themselves. Businesses will always protect themselves, first and foremost.
Cryio
GPU shortage due to mining => Increase in price
GPU shortage due to ram modules => Increase in price
RAM shortage due to ram modules => Increase in price
CPU shortage due to wafers => Increase in price
The only thing needed now is for something to happen to nand flash to skyrocket SSD prices as well.
We truly are in the darkest days of PC gaming. (though Ryzen CPUs are still amazingly fast for great prices still)
jaggerwild
Its all about Greed!
I don't hate the miners, hell who could blame them! If it were easier to do Id be mining as well, but to pay three prices for a GPU aint gonna happen. Every time prices go down they just make new coins, I forget the number of coins that can be mined but its high I know that. The funny part is its all being propped up by speculation and little else, all these people started coin companies(dear GOD WHY!).
BUT I REFUSE TO PAY THREE TIMES the price for a GPU, I'll find a new hobby. Maybe real world dating, there's a twist!!! 🙄
Aura89
Spoken by someone who truly has no clue what he's talking about.
Anything of value can be used to "launder money and avoid paying taxes", in fact if you're trying to avoid paying taxes with dollars, you simply pay with cash and receive cash as payment. There's nothing you can do with cryptocurrency that you can't do with a physical dollar, except, with cryptocurrency there is a ledger you can't, no matter how hard you try, destroy. There will always been a record of you sending and receiving cryptocurrency, but a pass from one person to the other of a physical dollar? None at all.
It's because this community has gone far, far down. Instead of being a community who appreciates hardware and talks about it, it instead has turned into (in the last few years) to tin-foil hat and higher-than-thou hatred.
