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President Joe Biden is taking action to find solutions to the current shortage of semiconductor chips – a manufacturing issue that has impacted, among other things, the latest game consoles.
The impact of the coronavirus pandemic on production has led to a shortage of semiconductors and other key products, affecting several industries across the United States and forcing many to cut manufacturing.
Reuters reports that the president yesterday signed an executive order launching a 100-day review of supply chains for four critical products, including semiconductor chips.
Other products covered by the review include pharmaceuticals, rare earth minerals, and high capacity batteries for electric vehicles.
The order will focus on the fields of communication technologies, transport, energy, food production, public health and defense.
But it is hoped that improvements in the supply of semiconductor chips could benefit the production of PS5 and Xbox Series X | S, as well as high-end graphics chips for PCs.
According to the Semiconductor Industry Association, US semiconductor companies account for 47% of all chip sales worldwide – but only 12% of manufacturing is done in the United States.
The president also pledged to seek significant investment for efforts to resolve this situation.
“I ask senior officials in my administration to work with industry leaders to identify solutions to the semiconductor deficit,” he said.
“Congress authorized a bill, but they need … $ 37 billion to make sure we have that capacity. I’m going to push for that, too.”
A recent report from Ampere Analysis suggests that supply constraints have kept the new PlayStation and Xbox consoles from exceeding the launch sales of their predecessors.
Following Microsoft’s most recent financial results, CFO Amy Hood said the company expects Xbox sales to “continue to be supply constrained” in the first quarter of 2021.
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