If you have a taste for irony, my company makes critical components for semiconductor equipment. If we can't ship, they can't ship. If they can't ship, semiconductor fabs can't increase capacity to meet the demand and solve the shortage.
We went line down last week due to shortage of a critical chip for our component.
In reality, the shortage is likely self-inflicted, like toilet paper a year ago, but for whatever combination of real demand + hoarding, we can't get them.
Interesting. I always imagined supply chains as a flow in one direction, with each further step of the chain making more complicated stuff. But your comment made me realise that supply chains can be more like a loop, with the more complicated components going back to make the earlier steps more efficient.
And a semiconductor factory requires lots of semiconductors themselves. It's like bootstraping a compiler.
We went line down last week due to shortage of a critical chip for our component.
In reality, the shortage is likely self-inflicted, like toilet paper a year ago, but for whatever combination of real demand + hoarding, we can't get them.