In a live interview with Yahoo Finance last week, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger explained that the issue that is holding up many auto manufacturers, the microchip shortage, is itself being held up by supply chain issues in its factories.
Intel is looking to build over 10 new superconductor fabrication facilities, but is also facing the same challenges at much of the manufacturing world, with the lead times for the making and delivering the machinery needed to produce microchips substantially longer than normal.
Said Gelsinger, “The big issue that we’ve faced over the last six to nine months is equipment that goes into the fabs [fabrication plants]. So now we and others are building the fabs, but we need the equipment to come into the fab to turn them into manufacturing output. And those equipment lead times have pushed out pretty substantially over the last six months.”
Gelsinger predicts that the world is “about halfway through” the chip shortage, and pointed out that the softening demand brought on by the inflationary market forces, such as the Shanghai port closures, and the war in Ukraine, is not necessarily all bad.
“It’s maybe a little bit of a lemon-lemonade kind of perspective. You know, a little bit of softening in demand actually gives us a bit of time to catch up and supply demand as well, which we know how hard that has been for the world to deal with the overall supply chain challenges.”
