Wednesday, February 17th 2021
Manufacturing: Samsung Semiconductor Fabs in Texas Shut Down Following State-wide Power Shortages
News just keep flowing that are bound to have impact on pricing for components users of this website know and love. The Austin-American Statesman reports that Samsung has been ordered to shutter its Texas factories in wake of recent power shortages that have impacted the state. The order, which came from Austin Energy, doesn't just affect Samsung: all industrial and semiconductor manufacturers in the state were ordered to idle or shut down their facilities, meaning that NXP Semiconductors and Infineon Semiconductors have also been affected. According to Austin Energy, all companies have complied with the order. A date for the lifting of these restrictions still hasn't been given.
As we know, semiconductor manufacturing is a drawn-out process, with some particular wafers taking several months in their journey from initial fabrication until they reach completion. This meas that it's a particularly sensitive business in regards to power outages or general service interruptions. The entire semiconductor manufacturing lines - and products therein, in various stages of production - can be rendered unusable due to these events, which will have a sizable impact in the final manufacturing output of a given factory. It remains to be seen the scale of this production impact, but a few percentage points difference in the overall global semiconductor manufacturing could have dire implications for availability and pricing, considering the already insufficient operational capacity in regards to demand. Considering the impact adverse temperatures are having on Texas residents, here's hoping for the quick resolution of these problems, which affect much more than just semiconductor manufacturing capabilities.
Sources:
Austin-American Statesman, via Tom's Hardware
As we know, semiconductor manufacturing is a drawn-out process, with some particular wafers taking several months in their journey from initial fabrication until they reach completion. This meas that it's a particularly sensitive business in regards to power outages or general service interruptions. The entire semiconductor manufacturing lines - and products therein, in various stages of production - can be rendered unusable due to these events, which will have a sizable impact in the final manufacturing output of a given factory. It remains to be seen the scale of this production impact, but a few percentage points difference in the overall global semiconductor manufacturing could have dire implications for availability and pricing, considering the already insufficient operational capacity in regards to demand. Considering the impact adverse temperatures are having on Texas residents, here's hoping for the quick resolution of these problems, which affect much more than just semiconductor manufacturing capabilities.
92 Comments on Manufacturing: Samsung Semiconductor Fabs in Texas Shut Down Following State-wide Power Shortages
Texas is normally a state that does not get weather so cold, including below freezing temps, and snow. Several natural gas pipelines, water lines to cool reactors, wind turbines, etc, all froze. effectively leaving thousands, if not millions, without power. the issues are currently ongoing.
There's installed capacity for both production and distribution of power. A myriad of factors, including family consumption in harsh winters, infrastructure anomalies, drought, can affect output and consumption, so it's hard to pinpoint (for us) what caused it.
If you want to know why that shut down, its because of two factors: snow, and a lack of preparedness for the snow. We generally have no control over the weather, but we can prepare for rare events and build more robust infrastructure.
There's also the 2011 Blackouts: when Texas temperatures dropped to 20F for a few days and knocked out something like 50 power plants. Its not like cold weather is that rare in Texas, the last rolling blackouts due to cold are easily within living memory.
Link: thetruesize.com/#?borders=1~!MTQ3NDA3NDg.MTE2ODQwNDA*MjQzMzAxODk(MTU5NjczOTY~!US-TX*ODk3OTY4NQ.MjE5OTEwNTI)Mw
The US stands to gain a lot from grid modernization from being most resistant to weather change to increasing profits.
As other said above your post, they are not connected to the federal grid, among other things, that's also interesting. Also with the huge oil reserves one would think they would have an excess of power and sell it off to other states.
Is the power utilities State owned or private or both?
EDIT: Privately owned, highly regulated, state-sanctioned monopolies... is how some people describe US's power companies. But really, they're only local-monopolies. There's multiple grids they tie into. Most grids cover multiple states and thus are regulated by the Federal government, but we got Texas here as a weird case where its primarily regulated by the state-government. And some of those rules are called "deregulation". Uggghhhhh... its complicated.