>>12135823TSM shareholder here.
If you want to know what happened, its because TSMC is overbooked and backlogged. There are very few CPU/GPU fab companies these days. Basically three relevant ones: TSMC, by far the most advanced, Samsung, who is TSMs main competitor but fell behind in recent years, and Intel, who really only produces their own X86 chips - and their 7nm process failed, even 10nm is shaky and has massive yield problems. Intel announced they plan on moving their production to TSM as well.
So you have AMD (CPUs and GPUs), Qualcomm (Snapdragon), Apple (M1 and all their other A series CPUs), some Nvidia (pro Ampere) and soon Intel, ALL wanting to use TSM and paying top dollar for their wafers. Ive heard securing production takes over a year in advance now.
Meanwhile, Nvidia moved their consumer GPU line to Samsung 8nm, but are having yield problems (meaning low production) probably because Samsung just isnt the greatest, which is why they are much cheaper. And PS5/Xbox both use AMD CPU+GPUs (TSM) as well.
China has nothing to do with it. Actually Trump helped the situation because he put pressure on TSM to stop producing Huewai chips as well, freeing up some wafers for US companies. TSM is a TAIWAN company not China.
Then crypto bull run began as well, making it profitable to buy a new GPU if you can run it for 6 months at current prices.
And then it doesnt help that nvidia RTX 2000 series was overpriced garbage. Many Pascal users (GTX 1000 series) skipped it. RTX 3000 is a true leap ahead and much lower prices, and millions of gamers want to upgrade. Then you have the hoax pandemic making gaming more popular, further increasing demand.
Right now the only chips easy to acquire are Intel 14nm++++++++ CPUs, everything else is backordered for weeks or months. Apple has the bucks to secure as much TSM capacity as they want, so M1 Macs are in stock too.
This isnt going to change any time soon either. Shortages will last at least another year.
