IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine - Q3 2022 - 42

1. Introduction
A
shadow looms over the global economy already hit
hard by the COVID-19 pandemic: the chip shortage,
that is, the lack of integrated circuits (ICs),
those electronic components manufactured by the semiconductor
industry led by TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor
Manufacturing Company), South Korean Samsung, and
U.S. Intel. Figure 1 shows the global semiconductor production
in 2020, clearly dominated by Asian companies
accounting for around 75% of the share.
To get an idea of the turnover involving this field,
consider that U.S. exports of semiconductors totaled
$49 billion in 2020, behind only airplanes ($72 billion),
refined oil ($65 billion), and crude oil ($50 billion) [1].
Chips are ubiquitous, being the basis of the so-called
digitalization. They also make possible that close interconnection
of data processing and production which
characterizes the fourth industrial revolution (industry
4.0). For this reason, the chip shortage produces effects
so sensitive that they make it appear insistently on
the pages of newspapers, magazines and web news
[2]-[6]. The semiconductor industry, previously almost
disregarded by the mass media and tech-savvy
observers, is now on the spotlight, overwhelmingly
attracting public attention, investments, and governments
plan to reinforce semiconductor manufacturing
facilities at a national or continental basis. The
semiconductor supply chain is in fact extremely critical,
especially for the most advanced technologies
required for the implementation of high-performance
logic chips such as microprocessors. These technologies
correspond to technology nodes of less than 10
nanometers and are currently concentrated in Taiwan
for 90% of global capacity.
However, just upgrading the chip factories, will presumably
not achieve the desired effects unless accompanied
by a parallel increase in the number of specialized
personnel and, mainly, electronic engineers whose speTaiwan
South
Korea
China
Japan
U.S.
Europe
Other
5
10
(%)
Figure 1. Percentage of global semiconductor chip manufacturing
market in 2020.
15
20 25
cific skills are hardly found in other engineers. In fact,
there is a global downward trend in student enrollment
in academic electronics programs and, as a result, companies
are unlikely to find qualified staff to hire in this
specific field1.
It becomes therefore of upmost importance to invert
this downward trend and one key action to be carried out
could be the promotion of a global, long-term information
campaign aimed at explaining to young people and
their families the role of the electronic engineering in the
digital value chain. To this end, governments, universities,
semiconductor/high-tech companies and voluntary
associations, including the IEEE, need to work closely on
practical initiatives to address this skills shortage.
2. The Chip Shortage and the
Semiconductor Industry
The worldwide shortage of semiconductors began primarily
with IC's for specific applications such as power
management, display controllers and microcontrollers,
that are manufactured in " mature " technology nodes
(roughly, >28nm). The shortage has now spread to cutting-edge
nodes and other devices (like smartphones,
game consoles, computers and medical equipment), and
there are capacity limits for substrates, passive components,
cable connections, and testing, which are all part
of the supply chain beyond the chip factories.
The reasons for this largely unexpected shortage
are many and may be partly related to the COVID-19
pandemic. During the last two years, distance working,
distance learning and remote health care have boosted
the request for personal computers and medical devices
at a global level2. Social distancing has greatly increased
the demand for game stations and multimedia
accessories, such as graphic cards3. The need for better
connectivity has necessitated many more broadband
servers for data centers4. Furthermore, the ongoing
trade war between the U.S. and China has severely limited
1To cite just one example, electronics engineers have been added to
the UK's list of deficient jobs since October 2019. This makes it easier
to hire skilled foreign workers, especially from emerging economies.
2Worldwide shipments of PCs, inclusive of desktops, notebooks, and
workstations, reached 84.2 million units in the second quarter of 2021,
with an increase of 13.4% from the same period of 2020. The chip shortage
had a strong impact on notebook offering, which resulted in desktop
growth outperforming notebooks during the quarter.
3In addition, the price of Bitcoin has made mining using graphic processing
units more profitable.
4Data centers played one of the most critical roles in preventing the
potential collapse of the world economy due to the COVID-19 pandemic
which in turn has caused record spending levels for data centers led by
AWS (Amazon), Microsoft and Google, reaching $37 billion in the third
quarter of 2020 alone. The global data center systems market reached
$220 billion in 2021, an increase of more than 7% year-over-year, according
to IT research firm Gartner's.
Salvatore Pennisi is with the Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica, Elettronica e Informatica, Università di Catania, ITALIA (e-mail: salvatore.
pennisi@unict.it).
42
IEEE CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS MAGAZINE
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IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine - Q3 2022

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