President Joe Biden is taking action to find solutions to the ongoing shortage of semiconductor chips – a manufacturing problem that has affected, 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, which has affected several industries in the US and is forcing production to decline.
Reuters reports that the president yesterday signed an executive order to launch a 100-day review of supply chains for four critical products, including semiconductor chips.
Other products covered by the review include pharmaceuticals, scarce earth minerals and high-capacity electric vehicle batteries.
The order will focus on the areas of communications technology, transportation, energy, food production, public health and defense.
But the hope is that improvements to the supply of semiconductor chips will increase the production of both PS5 and Xbox Series X | S, as well as high-end graphics chips for computers, can benefit.
According to the Semiconductor Industry Association, US semiconductor companies account for 47% of all disk sales worldwide – but only 12% of manufacturing is handled in the US.
The president also promised to seek significant investments for efforts to resolve this situation.
“I urge senior officials in my government to work with industry leaders to identify solutions to the semiconductor shortage,” he said.
“Congress has passed a bill, but they need … $ 37 billion to make sure we have this capacity. I will strive for that, too.”
A recent report by Ampere Analysis suggests that the restrictions on supply could have prevented the new PlayStation and Xbox consoles from surpassing their predecessor launch sales.
Following Microsoft’s latest financial results, Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood said the company expects Xbox sales during the first quarter of 2021 “will continue to be limited by supply”.