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Sony Asking Suppliers to Boost Production but Chip Shortages Mean Limited Stocks to Last Till 2022

These days just about every gaming component is hard to get, at least at reasonable pricing. The same goes for the next-gen PS5 and Xbox Series X|S consoles which have been nearly impossible to find at the MSRP in recent months. According to Jim Ryan, CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, the company has been working to increase the production of the PS5 console, but there are a lot of hurdles and bottlenecks in the global semiconductor supply chain.

The ongoing pandemic is at the top of the list as distribution had to be limited to online outlets to slow the spread of Covid-19. There is also a greater demand for semiconductors worldwide than usual. We are asking our suppliers to enable us to boost production, which will flow to the market this year.

Jim Ryan, CEO of SIE (Source)

Sony and Microsoft’s consoles depend on AMD’s SoCs which are fabbed on TSMC’s N7 node (7nm) in Taiwan. However, the chipmaker has to compete with just about every other rival in the industry for a slice of the 7nm capacity including NVIDIA, MediaTek, Qualcomm, Intel (for Xe-HPG), etc, who also require the same node for one or multiple product lines.

In addition to this, AMD’s own CPU and GPU lineups are based on the same N7 process, and as reported earlier, the company is prioritizing the next-gen consoles ahead of its own products to maximize profit margins. Overall, AMD sold approximately 9-10 million 7nm chips in Q4 2020 including the consoles, the Zen 3 parts, the older Zen 2 mobile, and desktop parts, and lastly the 200-300K Big Navi chips. The latter can be approximated by looking at the number of RX 6000 GPUs scalped and comparing it with that of the Ryzen 5000 parts. You get a figure of between 100-200K. That’s just 2-3% of AMD’s overall 7nm capacity at TSMC.

Areej Syed

Processors, PC gaming, and the past. I have been writing about computer hardware for over seven years with more than 5000 published articles. Started off during engineering college and haven't stopped since. Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Divinity, Torment, Baldur's Gate and so much more... Contact: areejs12@hardwaretimes.com.
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