Today’s bit of bad news, if true, has been a long time coming, with DigiTimes ($) reporting the biggest semiconductor wafer fabrication player, TSCM, is flagging a price hike in 2022 of up to 20%:

• “TSMC has notified clients of an about 10% price hike for its sub-16nm process manufacturing, with the new prices set to be effective starting 2022, according to sources at IC design houses.”
• It would be the company’s steepest single increase, and no doubt represents material price increases and supply chain squeezing of margins.
• TSMC also confirmed a delay to its next-gen 3nm manufacturing this week.
• TSMC doesn’t disclose its pricing, though the DigiTimes report suggests that the company seeks to bump up a 28nm wafer to “nearly $3000” starting in Jan 2022.
• By comparison, and noting this is based on guesstimates by retired engineers, there’s also a rumor 5nm wafers are priced at something like $17,000.
• You can try a silicon cost calculator here, though you’d have to consider it accurate-ish at best (Adapteva).

Uh-oh:

• If accurate, and applied wholesale to all clients, that would obviously include chips like Apple’s A-series and M-series, Qualcomm, Intel, and AMD.
• Meaning, of course, CPUs, GPUs, SoCs, and the like will cost more, reducing margins for manufacturers, and/or being passed to us, the consumers, on smartphones, iPhones, PCs, and so on.
• It’s all down to things like shipping rates going through the roof to an 11-year high, steel prices rising, shortages — and the problem is that what would seem to be a short-term problem rolls on (Bloomberg). 
• Phil Levy, the chief economist at Flexport, told The New York Times: “I’m less in that ‘transitory’ camp and more in the ‘we have reason to be concerned’ camp.”
• Other shortage rumors include launch dates for new smartphones slipping a few weeks from planned dates.