Are we running out of microchips?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 19 January 2023
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The world is becoming increasingly dependent on advanced microchips to power its high-end technology, However, they are made by just one company in Taiwan, TSMC, meaning the rest of the world is largely reliant on the country to produce its microchips. This is no accident and is in fact by Taiwanese design. Over three decades ago Taiwan decided to focus its resources on becoming the most advanced producer of microchips. Not only has this been of great profit for Taiwan’s economy its helped with security too – offering the country protection from its neighbour China by creating what’s been described as the ‘Silicon shield’, in other words, the US is largely dependent on Taiwan to sustain its high-end tech. Given both the USA’s and EU’s recent announcements that they are now heavily investing in and subsidising their own microchip industries, the question becomes is this still sustainable?
Presenter: Charmaine Cozier Producer: Christopher Blake and Ravi Naik Editor: Tara McDermott
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Inquiry, I'm Sharmainkosia, each week one question for expert witnesses |
| 0:05.6 | and an answer. |
| 0:07.0 | It's October 2022, and some of the biggest car makers in the world have a major problem. |
| 0:15.6 | In Sweden, Volvo announces one of its factories will close for a week. |
| 0:20.4 | Over in Japan, Toyota is forced to cut its production target. |
| 0:25.6 | The reason isn't a drop in demand for their fuel or electric vehicles, it's because |
| 0:30.2 | there's a shortage of a key component that's essential for building them, semiconductors, |
| 0:35.9 | also known as microchips or chips. |
| 0:39.3 | The situation was most severe during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, an intense demand |
| 0:45.0 | for chips outstrips supply, more than two years later availability issues are still surfacing. |
| 0:53.2 | Taiwan is the leading chip manufacturer in the world, now the US and Chinese governments |
| 0:58.4 | are spending billions to make more of their own, but are their motives protective or political? |
| 1:05.5 | This week we're asking, are we running out of microchips? |
| 1:10.9 | Part 1 Chips with Everything |
| 1:12.9 | Today's semiconductor microchips are used in your iPhones, your Android phones, in high |
| 1:20.5 | performance computing, operational system. |
| 1:23.9 | Jason Xi is a senior fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, specialising in the geopolitics |
| 1:29.4 | around semiconductors, he's also a former lawmaker in Taiwan where he oversaw tech policy. |
| 1:36.3 | A chip is essentially electronic circuits on a thin way for a silicon that there are |
| 1:41.5 | different types, memory one store and retrieve data, logic semiconductors process information, |
| 1:48.7 | but advanced chips are in a different league. |
| 1:52.0 | Substantially more powerful, they support the artificial intelligence essential for complex |
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