The shortage of chips affects far more than cars...

Although the current focus on the shortage of semiconductor components is focused on the automotive field, in fact, other industrial and digital applications are also severely impacted by the interruption of the IC supply chain.

Root According to a survey from the manufacturer software vendors Qt Group market research firm commissioned Forrester Consulting conducted, by the industrial and electrical equipment (electrical equipment) Field Machinery (industrial machinery) the extent of the impact of the heaviest chip shortage; IT hardware and In the computer field, there are not too many concessions, with the highest percentage of slowing down in product development.

The survey was conducted in March and covered 262 embedded device and connected product developers. It was found that 60% of the respondents, industrial machinery and electrical equipment manufacturers, are focusing on protecting the IC supply chain. At the same time, 55% of server and computer manufacturers said they are working hard to maintain chip supply.

The shortage of semiconductor components has caused many automakers to shut down in the past few weeks, and the above survey also shows that automobiles are still one of the industries that are focusing on the IC supply chain. On the whole, the survey found that nearly two-thirds of manufacturers suffered setbacks in the shipment of digital new products due to chip supply interruptions, and production plans were delayed by more than 7 months.

"Corporate organizations are now paying more attention to ensuring adequate semiconductor supply," the Forrester report wrote: "Therefore, half of our survey respondents said that ensuring adequate supply of semiconductor components and key hardware components has become the most important task this year. ."

Among the server and computer manufacturers that have suffered severe chip shortages, 71% said that IC shortages have slowed down product development. This is due to the demand for data center services such as cloud computing and storage, and remote workers’ The demand for streaming video applications has surged.

So how to deal with the problem of semiconductor shortages? Forrester's proposal is to use "cross-platform frameworks" to mitigate the impact, such as using flexible software tools that support diverse chips. The agency’s survey also found that 8 of the 10 senior executives interviewed said that they are investing in "cross-device tools and frameworks that support multiple hardware."

In addition to allowing new products to ship faster, this method is popularized because it can increase the flexibility of the supply chain, and it can also reduce the heavy workload of software developers - because they usually have to design multiple products at the same time. New product development is also facing a shortage of developers. Such personnel also need to have the ability to use multi-purpose software tools; three-quarters of the respondents in the above survey said that the market’s demand for connected devices exceeds qualified development. The manpower supply of the person.

Therefore, software vendors such as Qt are promoting cross-platform software database tools for product developers to cope with the chip shortage that is expected to continue into the second half of 2021; Qt senior products headquartered in Helsinki, Finland Marko Kaasila, vice president of development, said: "We are at a critical moment in the manufacturing and development of global technology products."

Source from International e-commerce