When it comes to electronics and communications, the main part that comes to our mind is the electronic gadgets like phones, laptops, door security alarms, smart watches, and more. Unlike the electrical appliances, the electronic gadgets are made from micro items like micro-controllers, resistors, capacitors, and so on. These are also termed as microelectronics because their ranges vary within micro and nano scales. Even though an electronic gadget has a lot of components present in their circuit, the brain of every circuit design is either the microprocessor or micro-controller.

For these two components to work in relation to other connected elements in the entire circuit, they need to be connected with different electronic components in series and parallel. As the circuits can become quite complicated, all these elements are compressed and formed an integrated circuit or IC. A microchip or an electronic chip is nothing but an integrated circuit where the main component is the microprocessor or microcontroller and several other supporting items.

A brief glance at the chips and their functions

The IC chips have revolutionized the electronics industry in several ways, some of which are described below:

1. IC chips are very small and thus, they can be fitted in almost any circuit. The sizes do vary from one chip to the other, but they aren’t as big as the elements used to control the same functions in early days.

2. Despite the chips being so small, they can come with millions of components, all connected together in the best possible manner.

3. The chips have reduced circuit complexities as they have replaced several complicated and bulky items used previously.

4. Making connections with the chips is super easy because you have to understand how each leg or pin will work.

5. As a chip is a microelectronic device, you won’t have to use a huge power source for operating this component.

Shortage of chips- the 2022 hype of electronics industry

90% of the electronic gadgets are made from the microchip. It serves as the brain since the major functions are controlled by this single component. For example, the operation of your laptop’s fan is controlled by the IC. Similarly, your phone gets charged because the charging pin comes in contact with an IC pin. The data that you store in the computers are transferred through the chips. Therefore, with so many varied uses, the demand for the microchip is increasing with each day.

However, the supply is almost scarce and it has been in this same condition for a couple of past years. Here are some insights that will help you understand how the demand has skyrocketed.

i.                    Since 2019, the PC sales have increased a lot which put more pressure on the production units, and hence the chip industry.

ii.                  30% increment was seen in the data centers pertaining to cloud computing. Due to this, the demand for highly functional chips increased by ten folds.

iii.                In the automotive industry, the projected cost of chips in one car in 2022 is about $500. Cars are being manufactured in huge numbers, and hence the demand for the ICs has skyrocketed.

iv.                Even though the industry for machine learning and artificial intelligence hasn’t seen the demand, it’s likely to go up annually due to the increase in demand for these technologies.

Relationship between the shortage of chips and future prospects for an ECE engineer

In order to compensate for this shortage, governments of various countries are putting pressure on the local companies to increase their production. The main areas where the chip manufacturing companies are located are:

1. China

2. Taiwan

3. United States of America

4. Japan

5. European Union

6. South Korea

As a result, companies have responded in a positive way, stating that they will increase the production facilities by outsourcing the work to other countries, even to India. Therefore, the demand for electronics and communication engineers will spike up once these companies start expanding their manufacturing units.

Conclusion

In earlier days, several electronic circuits were piled up together that not only disturbed the entire functioning of the system but also caused problems in establishing other connections. Owing to this reason, these components were joined together to form an integrated circuit, which was fitted inside the microchip. The number of electronic components in an IC chip can vary from five to five hundred, depending on the functionality of the chips and their purpose in a given circuit. So, without them, there will be no electronics industry which is why the demand for ECE engineers will grow a lot.