According to experts, the chips bottleneck will continue for a long time

According to experts, the chips bottleneck with its negative consequences for carmakers, for example, will continue for a long time. In some areas, such as memory chips, the situation is only likely to ease with the commissioning of fresh capacities in the years 2023 to 2024, said Alan Priestley of the analysis company Gartner. The recovery in individual sectors will proceed differently given the different origins of the problems. The car manufacturers, for example, were hit particularly hard by a "perfect storm" with a combination of technological change and corona effects. When the demand for cars plummeted at the beginning of the pandemic, the industry, which traditionally operated with low inventory levels, cut back orders from chip suppliers. "After the market began to recover later in the year, they wanted to buy more chips again - but the manufacturers have meanwhile shifted capacities to other products that are in high demand." Another problem, especially for the automotive industry, is that it had to commit to certain semiconductor configurations a few years ago when developing today's vehicle models - for which there are also increased requirements in terms of reliability. "The scope for switching to alternatives is correspondingly narrow." In addition, the automotive industry, with tens of millions of vehicles per year, has much less market power than the smartphone providers, who need chips for hundreds of millions of devices. The surge in demand for notebooks with working and learning from home during the pandemic also contributed to the utilization of the existing chip factories, stressed Priestley. As a result, more simple semiconductors were needed again, such as those used in power supplies. However, it is precisely in this area that capacities have been reduced over the years - and cannot be rebuilt in a short time.