Chip shortage

[DallasBBQ]

I noticed the following in an article today. Does anyone know if the new chips will cause the removal of standard features previously offered on the vehicle? I know land rover has removed several options due to chip shortages.


He called the global semiconductor chip shortage the "most painful" constraint in the push to build production. The California-based startup produced 1,015 vehicles last year, coming up short of its target of 1,200 due to supply-chain constraints. read more

Scaringe said Rivian had replaced some chipsets in certain parts with other chipsets that are easier to get. He said the global shortage would be a factor through the rest of the year.

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[Inkedsphynx]

I doubt it will impact feature-set. Most of the automotive industry right now is scrambling to get on modern silicon. The chip shortages in play for the auto industry are against 10+ year old hardware. Since new hotness wasn't needed, basically no automotive company updated their designs to include modern smaller fab silicon, which is more expensive.

Even worse, there's only 1 foundry in the world that still produces those old chips in any reasonable quantity.

So, I believe this dovetails to something I saw somewhere else relating to what Rivian is doing. Basically, they're redesigning software systems to be able to accommodate the more modern hardware which has better availability right now.

In theory there should be almost no reason they can't do that and maintain feature parity with the old silicon.

 

[KiloV]

No, changing out the chips won't cause feature changes. Since Rivian designs and builds a lot of their electronics subsystems themselves, they can swap out one chip on their board with another comparable chip without causing any changes to the functionality of the board overall.

 

[sevengroove]

This is clearly a question that shows how uninformed I am, but could newer silicon potentially imply an easier pathway to feature additions in the future?

 

[Inkedsphynx]

Yes

 

[Craigins]

This is clearly a question that shows how uninformed I am, but could newer silicon potentially imply an easier pathway to feature additions in the future?

Requires more hardware redesign. They could drop in a new chip and just connect the current pinouts to the existing peripherals.

They would then be ignoring any additional capabilities of the chip.

Or they could completely redesign to take advantage of the newer chip capabilities.

Or they may be redesigning the exact same chip logically on a smaller architecture (say 7nm instead of 20).

 

[screamingkarts]

Apparently the newer chips they are acquiring are making it better for the developers in Rivian to build better software. I heard it from my relative who works for rivian. Sounded like a good thing

 

[KiloV]

Apparently the newer chips they are acquiring are making it better for the developers in Rivian to build better software. I heard it from my relative who works for rivian. Sounded like a good thing

Yep, it's a good thing. And Rivian will likely be chucking better hardware into future iterations of the R1 platform (and the R2+) as the years go by. The challenge will be backward compatibility for early adopters like the people on this forum. If I get my truck in March 2022, will the hardware included in my truck be capable of running the latest and greatest Rivian software five years from now? Tesla owners have already experienced this issue. I don't know that much can be done about this, but it is one of the gotchas of the over-the-air upgrade era. I can imagine a time in the future when cars are designed to have processing components that are readily swappable, so that the main vehicle platform can continue its life while the computing guts get upgraded every few years.

 

[lostpacket]

Apparently the newer chips they are acquiring are making it better for the developers in Rivian to build better software. I heard it from my relative who works for rivian. Sounded like a good thing

Now we just need a 12v lead acid battery shortage

 

[kizamybute']

After now two years of this issue, you would think that these massive multi-billion dollar manufacturing companies would have learned a way to build their own "chips". Amazing that one factor is the common denominator delaying production of vehicles from all manufacturers. This well above my pay grade, but just seems like, with the resources these huge manufacturers have, they could have figured out how to build their own "chips" by now??

 

[Inkedsphynx]

TSMC, which is the primary foundry producing this old Silicon, is a half a TRILLION dollar business.

I don't think you understand the amount of money, time, and engineering power it takes to go from "I've never designed or produced a silicon chip before" to "I'm producing enough reliable well-designed chipsets to power all the vehicles I'm manufacturing".

Given that Rivian still can't get R1Ts out the door in volume, let's assume it's better for them to focus on their actual business than be worrying about vertically integrating their supply chain.

 

[KiloV]

After now two years of this issue, you would think that these massive multi-billion dollar manufacturing companies would have learned a way to build their own "chips". Amazing that one factor is the common denominator delaying production of vehicles from all manufacturers. This well above my pay grade, but just seems like, with the resources these huge manufacturers have, they could have figured out how to build their own "chips" by now??

It's really not that simple. You can't just make semiconductor components out of modeling clay. First you have to have an adequate supply pipeline for the necessary raw materials. Then you have to build the chip fabrication facilities to manufacture the chips. You can't just whip those things up in a few months. It takes years. The good news is that Intel recently announced plans to invest many billions in building chip manufacturing capacity here in the US. The first of these facilities might come online as soon as 2025. Between now and then, however, Tesla and Ford and GM and Rivian won't be able just to make some chips out of duct tape and bubble gum.

 

[Craigins]

it also doesn't really make sense to design your own chip. For example, they are using a lot of AI/ML for self driving, they are also using a somewhat complicated UI based on unreal. So in theory, they would go for a solution centered around some graphics card based chipsets, like nVidia/AMD.

Have you seen the graphics card shortage of late? It is one reason why intel is entering the game, and is buying up a large chunk of TSMC's bandwidth to produce chips.

And you think it is bad now, TSMC stands for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. Wait till China follows Russia's lead and decides to reclaim Taiwan forcefully.

 

[lostpacket]

Look I got a whole sack of taters and a fancy new Leatherman that has a peeler.

I'm gonna do my part to alleviate this chip shortage and it's going to be delicious

 

[AdamsFan1983]

After now two years of this issue, you would think that these massive multi-billion dollar manufacturing companies would have learned a way to build their own "chips". Amazing that one factor is the common denominator delaying production of vehicles from all manufacturers. This well above my pay grade, but just seems like, with the resources these huge manufacturers have, they could have figured out how to build their own "chips" by now??

Nobody wants to invest the billions in capital it takes to build these chips for fear of the auto industry iterating into a need for more powerful/smaller chips. The problem isn't simply that the foundries reallocated the chips to other industry. Its that when the auto companies cancelled their alotments, the foundries got out of the business of making the low margin chipsets---and rebuilt their lines to manufacture the newer architecture (HIGHER MARGIN) chips.

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