Can someone explain the semiconductor shortage to me?<p>Usually when I hear shortage I immediately translate it to "the price has reached a level that I don't like". The "labor shortage" was used to justify changes to immigration policy. There's also a "car shortage", but you can buy a car, it'll just be more expensive that a few years ago. Car companies stopped shipping cheaper models because they can move the same amount of the more expensive models with higher margins. Obviously everything is getting more expensive (IMO due to the trillions of dollars of newly created money over the last two years) so we hear a lot about "shortages"<p>Is there a story behind the semiconductor shortage? People just say it as a matter of fact like bad weather affecting crop prices. Has there been natural occurrences that affect production? Obviously semi-conductor revenue is up a lot, but has the absolute number of semiconductors sold been flat, gone down or not kept up with prior YoY growth? What's going on?