Why there is a massive chip shortage in the semiconductor industry?

• Potential factors like economic disruption due to COVID-19, working from home, wafer yield issues, and shortage for 200 mm wafer capacities in foundries are some of the potential reasons why we are seeing a sudden surge in demand and a severe shortage in supply.
• Over the last 30 years, silicon wafer size has grown from 1-inch to 300 mm wafer size (which is 11.8 times larger than 1 inch). 300 mm wafers are invariably used for manufacturing leading-edge silicon IC’s, but this doesn’t benefit many customers.
• The reason being these design companies don’t see much profitability in lower node technologies and hence they want to continue with their current fab.
• 200 mm (8-inch in diameter) fabs are older facilities that manufacture chips at mature nodes (350 nm to 90 nm), whereas 300 mm fabs are used for manufacturing chips designed on lower nodes (65 nm and below), but it is not restricted just to lower nodes.
• Moving design from one fab to another incur huge cost.
• Since many people are working from home, there is a huge demand for computers, tablets, TV, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and many automotive electronics. And the current fab capacity limit is making it difficult to meet the supply request.
• The semiconductor industry is at a critical juncture where the demand from general household and partner companies is shooting up with a huge potential for revenue generation in 2021 (at least 12% growth), but at the same time, the supply chain is in the spotlight restricted by limited capability and lower investment.