Dell foresees six more months of supply issues

PC maker Dell expects semiconductor supply chain woes will continue for at least another half year. Over the past year, we've heard a lot of explanations for why chips are in short supply, but Dell UK senior vice president and GM, Dayne Turbitt, pointed at something we hadn't heard before.

A shortage of sand?

The Register received a reply from Turbitt that "the silicon has been consumed by all the vials for the [coronavirus] vaccine." Turbitt also mentioned water shortages in Taiwan as an exacerbating factor for the IC supply challenges. The article has no further details so we don't know how big of a factor the shortage of pure sand is.

Back in November 2020, the first sign that countries were ordering COVID-19 vaccine supplies on a large scale also came from Dell - via vice chairman and chief operating officer Jeff Clarke. Clarke warned financial analysts at the time that there were "going to be challenges in the freight network towards the very end of the year as airplanes get filled up with vaccines and are all competing for a limited amount of space."

Steve Brazier, president and CEO of analyst firm Canalys, told The Register today: "The processor supply issue has eased, but the global shortages of semiconductors has not. So even if you have the processor, you may not have the displays, memory, ICs to build your product.