When the Chips are Down - Assessment of Vulnerability to Disruptions to the Supply of Critical Semiconductors

Explore a comprehensive research presentation examining the critical vulnerabilities in semiconductor supply chains and their potential impact on modern infrastructure. Learn how researchers at Berkeley National Lab conducted expert elicitation across multiple critical sectors and performed detailed microelectronics origin assessments to map supply chain risks. Discover findings that identify memory chips, high-performance logic, and commodity integrated circuits as the highest-risk components, while revealing that disruptions to nearly every chip category could prove catastrophic. Understand how existing infrastructure can weather short-term disruptions but new production faces complete shutdown during supply chain interruptions. Examine the concerning shift of engineering talent from innovation to crisis management during disruptions, and explore the 18-36 month timeline required for component substitutions that creates dangerous vulnerability windows. Gain insights into resilience strategies including modular architectures, open standards for foundational devices, and design-for-portability approaches that align with open-compute hardware principles, while understanding the critical balance between maintaining current operations with existing chips and securing future innovation dependent on continuous semiconductor supply.