I have been looking at 27" monitors online (at Amazon and other sources) and am seeing a lot of this: out of stock
Prices have definitely gone up over the last year. I think I will wait for the market to cool down. My desire for a 27" monitor is not urgent.
Prices have definitely gone up over the last year. I think I will wait for the market to cool down. My desire for a 27" monitor is not urgent.
The tiny, $1 chip that is behind record price increases for computers
While the recent chip shortage makes most consumers think it must be microprocessors - the brains of personal computers - that are causing the most recent...
www.marketwatch.com
While the recent chip shortage makes most consumers think it must be microprocessors – the brains of personal computers – that are causing the most recent supply headaches, it turns out that a tiny, $1 chip is wreaking the most havoc in the PC market.
The chips are called liquid crystal display, or LCD, drivers, and are used in monitors, PCs, laptops, automobiles, smartphones, and nearly all products with a digital LCD panel, giving instructions to the pixels. While the chip shortage has been the talk of the semiconductor industry, little-known integrated circuits, or ICs, are playing a much bigger role in the shortage than their more expensive brethren.
“The No. 1 component in shortage is a component that goes into the panel, the driver IC,” said Linn Huang, an analyst who covers personal computers at IDC.
“Anything with an LCD panel, a TV, a phone or a tablet, but notebooks predominantly, you will need a chip that has an LCD driver, telling the panel what pixel to light up or not,” said Shane Rau, an IDC analyst who covers semiconductors. He said smartphones and TVs are both are experiencing LCD shortages, but the pain of the shortage is being felt by the purchasers of notebook computers, which have become hot items.