one page paper and risk cube

Risk to possibly cover - Abraham Henri: I’d like to cover the quality of the microprocessor as described below.

WE HAVE SUPPLY AND DEMAND - INCREASE COST TO COMPUTERS - CAR MANUFACTURERS - OVERHEATING - Continued lock downs 

Introduction

        As a global pandemic engulfed the world, the economy and all of us in the last year and a half it has had a major impact on the semiconductor industry.  From the boom in demand from the electronics manufacturers, automobile companies and more, the effects of both positive and negative risk have been felt far and wide.  

        With supply chain management, suppliers and subcontractors alike running lean processes along with on demand production has led to issues in nearly all supply chains.  This paper will examine some of those risks along with the far reaching impacts of the decision to run these supply chains in this manner.  

        Demand has spiked as production has slowed leading to a structural change in the semiconductor industry.  Companies have been forced to outsource to foundries for actual chip manufacturing as the shortage is running across the board.  We will examine some of the risk and impacts of this shortage in the semiconductor industry in this paper.             

 Supply and Demand

The demand for semiconductor chips has increased over the years due to advancement in technology. “But demand for chips is continuing to outstrip supply, and car makers are no longer the only companies feeling the pinch” (Shead, 2021).

Semiconductors are now used in various products which have led to a steep increase in demand in recent years. Political and economic factors such as tariffs, sanctions, and import restrictions have exacerbated the situation. “Toss in some geopolitical tensions between China and the US, which has led Chinese tech companies to   aggressively stockpile chips and chip-making equipment  in anticipation of US sanctions, and it's easy to see why getting your hands on a new smartphone is not a given these days” (Leprince-Ringuet, 2021).

The high demand has influenced the manufacturing process and forced some companies to redesign their product to compensate for the shortage and the low quality of some of the available semiconductor chips. Consumers are also feeling the heat as prices from a small product like a computer mouse to big ones like a new car have significantly increased.

The tremendous demand for microprocessors has impacted manufacturing companies and suppliers in many ways. The high demand has led to compromise on the quality of the product. Companies are prioritizing quantity to keep up with global demand, and employees are being laid off to cut costs.

Impact on Manufacturers:

·             Obstruction of supply chain

·             Cost increase

·             Stall production

·             Reduce profit

·             Decrease in product quality

·             Defective products

·           Delay of new products

Finding a lasting solution to the microprocessor shortage problem will require a national effort. Local and the federal government, along with big tech companies will have to prioritize creating infrastructure to increase the production of semiconductor locally, which would significantly decrease our reliance on other nations. This would be a good move for the economy (creation of new jobs), the consumers (more supplies and less cost), and for national security.

Increase of Cost

When it comes to computers, it is a very broad subject. What makes up a computer? Most people think of a laptop or desktop they use to surf the web or play video games. But there is more to it. Your cell phone, televisions, Bluetooth headphones, your car, depending on the year, are all computers. If we are to open a desktop we will find a processor, memory, graphics card, a motherboard, and a hard drive which all consist of a microprocessor. As organizations migrate their employees to a teleworking policy, computers are increasing in demand, rather it be the employee buying their own computer or the company providing one for them. As supply goes down and demand goes up, the price of goods increases significantly. 

One example of the increase in computer cost are the graphics card. The graphics card, or GPU, is one of the most crucial upgrades to a computer for the gaming industry. Not only that, but some software processes use the GPU over the CPU to better utilize the hardware in a machine. For those who farm cryptocurrencies, they also buy high end GPU’s for better efficiency. From personal experience, I was excited for the GeForce RTX 3080, a graphics card that was better than the previous GeForce RTX 2080 TI which was around 1,200 dollars in cost. At launch the RTX 3080 was at an amazing price of $699 and today the card is not only very difficult to find but is reselling for around $2,000 dollars now. The graphics card is only one example of the price increase in computers. Around the world we are experiencing a chipset shortage that is making it difficult to buy a computer at a reasonable price. This affects both the consumer and business side of things.

Chip Shortage Hurting Car Manufacturers

            A chip shortage that began as consumers stocked up on personal electronic devices and computers now threatens to snarl car production around the world. GM has joined a long list of automakers in extending production cuts in the US until the middle of March 2022.  They joined a long list of others including Ford, Honda, Chrysler, and Fiat in warning investors of slowed vehicle production due to the chip shortage. The issues are likely to continue as demand remains high while the chips remain in short supply as Covid 19, and the pandemic continues to spur demand for consumer electronics.  The first runs on these electronics were born from people buying computers, monitors, and other gear for working remotely or going to school.  Then in the fall of last year as the pandemic continued sales of gaming consoles, TV’s, smart phones, and tablets began flying off the shelves.  The increase in all of these devices being sold has left the car manufacturers with a severe shortage in 2021.        

              

          “External risks are outside the control of the project team and its host organization. Because of this, external risks are generally more difficult to predict and control.  This kind of event directly threatens the project, but often takes project managers by surprise because of a deficient analysis of external threats (Identifying Internal Risk Factors and External Risks In Project Management, 2010)”.  These types of risk are very difficult to mitigate and deal with. They tend to be swift, impactful, and sometimes lead to catastrophic results. 

Overheating

         Heat transfer science and engineering have contributed to the emergence of computer technology since the birth of contemporary lockdown in electronics technology. As a heat transfer study object, the computer has a unique feature: it exhibits geometrical revolutions and acquisitions as microelectronics science progresses. The increased packing density of digital systems, modular component circuits, and rising hierarchical layers of firm complex organs are signs of hardware evolution (Moore, 1965). The key drivers that combine to generate these characteristics are the search for ever good computational capacity, reduced space utilization, and improved energy consumption efficiency. Manufacturing cost constraints also influence the growth of hardware.

Moreover, the desire to make computers omnipresent in our culture has resulted in many computing gadgets. Heat flux density and heat transport routes are increasing simultaneously, posing new difficulties to thermal management. In the paper's introduction, I recall our experiences with mainframes in the 1980s, when the system's architectural shift permitted water cooling to be implemented. Then, broad readings of the equipment evolution, such as recapturing prior experience, are proposed. The evolutionary tendency suggests that the area available for cooling would diminish, a process already taking place in all types of computers. In supercomputers, small packaging requirements will skyrocket, necessitating a refocus of our research on microfluidic cooling. A computer vision applied behavior analysis user faces difficulty when the sophistication of pressure drop pathways in tiny equipment grows (Schmidt & M., 2008). Electrical charge and heat pathways get linked in highly integrated circuits, making electronic codesign an exceedingly difficult endeavor. A retail product, a microchip (PCB), and a multi-core CPU chip are used to highlight these difficulties. 

The circuit architecture tends to lose geometry regularity as the pixel size of our vision increases. Microprocessors, interconnect wires, and other materials emerge as discrete heat production and transport mediums when the resolve range is lowered to the micron-meter scale. Heat pathways through these tiny components are just too complicated for simulation methods to account for in detail. Calculating complicated microfluidic heat pathways necessitates a new approach. In any event, convection in microscale routes is related to heat convection in subatomic scale channels, and this relationship is influenced by pressures and temperatures enforced on microchip surfaces. The simulated virtualization processing model was developed and utilized to link thermal conductivity processes over various time intervals, from centimeters to microns.

Risk Cube

The worldwide epidemic has brought to light a number of the important supply chain-like risk cubes concerns, prompting businesses to reconsider when they assess their whole supply chain, including all of the partners they inevitably rely on. It's no longer appropriate to assess the very next sources only based on the amount.