When the PS5 came out, do you remember how hard it was to get one? Have you ever wondered why it was so hard to get one?
Well, it was because of a chip shortage.
If you don’t know, a chip, known as a semiconductor or integrated circuit, is a bunch of electrical circuits on a conductive type of material.
Because of supply and demand, companies have been buying more chips, and they are going out faster than they can be created.
The issue is that chips need to be made in special environments, called fabs, with a specific temperature and specific conditions-and those environments are expensive and take a long time to make.
A lot of things use these chips, including cars, phones, washing machines, gaming consoles, computer parts, and more.
Covid-19 hasn’t been helping either.
Because of the pandemic, people who could have spent their money on other things, spent it on things such as computers and TV’s, making more of a demand for chips.
All of this has now caused an increase in costs for chips, which have caused an increase in price for other electronics too.
It is predicted that the shortage will be starting to end by 2021, but it wont fully end until the end of 2022.
