http://digitimes.com/print/a20110315VL202.html
http://www.fabtech.org/news/_a/japa...ami_initial_impact_on_semiconductor_industry/
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-...acking-the-status-of-fabs-in-wake-of-disaster

 

Im sure China will fill the gap.

 

China can fab product but they don't make the raw materials for the factorys. Nobody in the business buys semi-grade chemicals from China, they just don't have the quality control to pass ISO and even if they did it takes months to requal a process with a new supplier.

If you need memory for your computer, buy it now.

 

A good reference map to where the electronic plant are.

 

Recall the fire that put a halt to epoxy production in 1993. The one source of the grade of epoxy for RAM going out caused memory prices to shoot up for months.

This is a link to an old message board - look at the prices! - http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-276412.html

 

As I have heard. The factories are mostly not damaged. But the fact that the infrastructure is wiped out. The factories are more or less forced to close down.

 

Analysts agree that the damage to infrastructure will inevitably hit economic output for the next three to six months.
And depending on how long the uncertainty continues around power shortages and supply chain disruptions, it could have a longer lasting impact.
"The worse the dip is in the second quarter, the worse the impact will be on overall gross domestic product this year," said Kilbinder Dosanjh of the Economist Intelligence Unit.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12756379

It takes a while to recover from this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpuLlIrUYsI

 

Time will tell. Perhaps we should wait until the full extent of the damage is established before trying to predict when and how recovery might occur. The Japanese economy was not in a good state before this disaster, so we might fear that this will be the final straw, the beginning of an economic collapse.

Clearly it will be very costly to put things straight, but beyond this there may be a serious energy shortage. This will be bad enough in the short term, with some power stations wrecked and others shut down as as a precaution. In the long term, providing new supplies will not be a trivial matter. Japan is poor in fossil fuels, and may now be reluctant to build more nuclear capacity, even if she can afford it. If the country has been pitched into permanent energy poverty, how can she hope to compete with her neighbours, especially China, who do not share this disadvantage?

A lot may depend on whether the people of Japan can sustain the will to continue trying, in the face of an apparently bleak outlook. As a people, they do seem to have surprising reserves of strength, as witness their recovery in the post-WW2 period. This time however, they cannot expect the sort of outside assistance that they received at that time.

 

I suspect they will rebuild their reactors, but using safer designs. Short term this is horrendous, but long term this could have some long lasting beneficial effects, for everyone, in the form of much safer power plants.