The Biden administration and most of the media interpreted the chip shortage as a supply chain problem. The White House commissioned a 250-page report on supply chain vulnerabilities that focused on semiconductors. However, the semiconductor shortage wasn’t primarily caused by issues in the chip supply chain. There were some supply disruptions, like COVID lockdowns in Malaysia, which impacted semiconductor packaging operations there. But the world produced more chips in 2021 than ever before—over 1.1 trillion semiconductor devices, according to research firm IC Insights. This was a 13 percent
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