General Motors has announced that they will cut the production of trucks due to the global semiconductor shortage. The production cuts will occur at North American plants. The Flint, Michigan plant will operate on one production shift on the week of July 26, and the Fort Wayne assembly plant in Indiana that manufactures the Chevy Silverado 1500, and GMC Sierra 1500 trucks will be idled next week.
Their Silao production plant in Mexico will also suspend production next week. That plant manufactures the Silverado 1500, Sierra 1500, and Cheyenne as well. All three of these plants are expected to resume production on August 2. The global semiconductors shortages has been dragging on for years, and has affected the supply or cost of anything utilizing semiconductor electronics.
A few common examples of semiconductor electronics are:
- Transistors.
- CPUs and GPUs.
- Voltage regulators.
- Boost and buck converters.
- Microcontrollers.
- Analog to Digital converters.
- Digital To Analog converters.
- ECUs (which contain nearly all the parts listed above).
- Infotainment systems.
- Memory chips.
- Real Time Clocks (RTCs).
Modern automobiles and other intelligent appliances contain many of the parts listed above and they are made from many materials, some of which are scarce. These shortages have been exacerbated by the pandemic. However, they have been looming for many years and are not expected to be fully resolved for some time.
