Shortage of computer chips slowly easing, other sectors remain tense

Those who try (in vain) to buy a graphics card for their computer know it well: for nearly two years, the market has been hit hard by the shortage of computer components and manufacturers have had a hard time meeting demand. Despite a marked increase in laptop PC sales in volume over the last few quarters, reseller stocks are generally low and some models are only available for a few weeks. IT is not the only industry affected; almost all sectors are affected, in particular the automobile with manufacturers forced to limit their production.

Better, but not at all levels

While most tech giants agree that the end of the crisis will not happen before the end of 2022 or even during 2023, signs of improvement are nevertheless being felt. The price of graphics cards, although still very high, seems to be no longer trending upwards and a new report from analyst firm TrendForce reveals that the availability of PC chips has improved in November 2021.

We are not talking here about important components such as processors and graphics cards, but about small, no less essential elements that have been sorely lacking lately, even in the automotive industry in particular. This makes it easier for PC makers to get their hands on the USB-C controllers, wifi cards and power circuits needed to keep their machines running smoothly. On the other hand, the difficulties persist on the side of PCIe 3.0 controllers for SSDs, partly because of the arrival of Intel Alder Lake processors and DDR5 on laptops.

In addition, the report notes that the smartphone industry is likely to be affected by the lack of other types of components (4G chips and touch screens for example)… However, we hope that the end of the crisis is soon, to as much as the year 2022 promises to be rich in new features for PCs with the release of Intel Alder Lake and AMD Ryzen 6000 and 7000 processors, and Intel Arc graphics cards.