The race to secure semiconductor supply chains

Business Daily

BBC

Business

4.4 • 816 Ratings

🗓️ 11 January 2024

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Semiconductors hit the news during the Covid-19 pandemic, as issues with supply chains led to shortages of cars and soaring prices.

Since then, geopolitical tensions have impacted the industry. 90% of the world's most advanced chips are made by TSMC in Taiwan. Now, countries all over the world are investing billions of dollars into the industry, so that manufacturing of these chips can happen in more places and alleviate some of the problems supply chains have faced in the last few years.

In today’s episode, we visit a new semiconductor fabrication plant in the UK - the first to develop a low-cost, flexible semiconductor, as companies, and nations, race to diversity the industry.

(Picture: Two workers in PPE inside the Pragmatic semiconductor plant in Durham, England. Credit: Pragmatic)

Produced and presented by Hannah Mullane

Transcript

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0:00.0	Bring the world closer with podcasts from the BBC World Service.
0:05.0	Unmissible stories from around the globe.
0:07.4	Whoa.
0:08.5	Search for the documentary, Lives Less Ordinary, and Amazing Sports Stories, wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
0:16.3	You better be ready because we're going to bring it to you.
0:26.9	... be ready because we're going to bring it to you. Hello, I'm Hannah Mullane.
0:29.1	Welcome to Business Daily.
0:31.9	Today's episode is all about semiconductors,
0:35.2	an industry that wasn't really on anyone's radar until this happened.
0:39.4	A worldwide shortage of semiconductors that's hammering the auto industry and auto workers.
0:46.1	Mr. Biden is directing federal agencies to review supply chains. It comes as a global computer
0:52.5	chip shortage is crippling U.S. auto production.
0:56.1	The average cost of a new car has now topped $40,000.
1:00.2	The main reason, a shortage of computer chips.
1:03.7	2021 and the motoring industry is struggling, and chips hit the news.
1:09.1	These chips are needed for almost everything with an on-off switch.
1:12.9	And when we look at where these chips are made, there's more of a problem. Turns out 90% of the most
1:18.0	advanced chips, the ones that people really want, are made by one company, TSM based in Taiwan.
1:25.2	Why is that a problem? Well, when there's a shortage of a product
1:28.7	and there's only one place to get that product,
1:31.3	all you can really do is wait.
1:33.7	Since then, we've seen countries around the world
	...

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