Summary

In Part 3, Jason Sachs examines Moore's Law, semiconductor foundries, and the economics that drove the 2021 chip shortage. The post shows how changes in manufacturing incentives propagate through supply chains and uses a simple game to reveal practical procurement and design trade-offs engineers face.

Key Takeaways

• Explain how limits to Moore's Law and node economics influence foundry capacity and product availability.
• Analyze foundry business incentives and their effects on lead times, allocation, and priority for different product segments.
• Model supply-chain behavior under demand shocks using the article's game to surface timing and forecasting risks.
• Apply concrete mitigation tactics — e.g., multi-sourcing, strategic inventory, design flexibility, and longer forecasting horizons — to reduce project risk.

Who Should Read This

Embedded engineers, firmware developers, system architects, and technical product managers working on IoT or embedded Linux products who need to understand semiconductor supply risks and procurement trade-offs.

Still RelevantIntermediate

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