NPR.

This is the indicator from Planet Money.

I'm Paddy Hirsch.

And I'm Darien Woods.

We've been talking a lot about chip shortages on the indicator, and today we're going to take

a very deep dive into the world of semiconductors.

Semiconductors, computer chips, there are almost everything that we use that uses a power

supply from toasters and toothbrushes to smartphones and cars.

And the ubiquity of these tiny devices means that we produce a lot of them.

In fact, globally, every year, we produce more transistors, which are the individual components

of a semiconductor, than we do grains of wheat and rice combined.

So we wanted to know why is there this shortage of such an important component at the moment?

It's coming up after the break.

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We are experiencing a global semiconductor shortage.

It's gotten so bad that it's beginning to threaten entire companies.

General Motors income dropped 40% last quarter because it couldn't source the chips needed

to finish making tens of thousands of vehicles.

...