Future of the chip industry.

As technological dependency grows, microchips will remain an essential component in future products both within and outside the automotive industry for the foreseeable future.

Prices are also likely to remain the same until new chip types are brought into wide-scale production. Chou was keen to reinforce this when discussing the possibility of silicon carbide microchips. He says these will be “the next oil” for the microchip industry and could provide “more efficient and cheaper approaches to developing systems.” The resources may be easier to source while also providing an important stopgap between software and hardware convergence.  

Silicon microchips are being developed by all microchip manufacturers in the automotive industry, but Chou admits that their time-to-market “is longer than software and more costly.” He maintains that it will be part of the next stage of automotive innovation. 

Understanding the next step of the shortage could prove difficult, as he notes: “The shortage will vary in severity from industry to industry and in the automotive sector from manufacturer to manufacturer.” Whatever the future holds for both hardware-agnostic systems and silicon microchips, it will take time and funds to ensure they become both cost-effective to develop and accessible to implement.