When I first heard about the the US’s planned extensive tariffs against good from China, I thought it would be relatively flat across the board, at least withing specific product categories. But the folks over at Serve the Home point out that embedded systems may be hit particularly hard by the new sanctions.
That’s because while the tariffs certainly incentivize companies to explore manufacturing outside of China, for example in Taiwan, there just isn’t the capacity needed to meet demand. So many systems still plan to do motherboard and other lower cost items manufactured in China, then add in other costlier components post-import.
Sounds great, except embedded systems, like Intel Xeon D, Atom, and AMD Epyc 3000, can’t do that with their CPUs. So the cost of those systems will be hit particularly hard compared to their more modular cousins.
While a 10% tariff on these parts doesn’t seem too egregious, the piece does a good job explaining how this will impact costs up and down the supply chain.
Patrick Kennedy comments:
During a late October trip to Taipei meeting with several vendors, one topic consistently came up: tariffs. Discussions on the impact of 10% and potentially 25% tariffs on computer assemblies made in China and imported to the US are everywhere. A unique perspective arose regarding how tariffs impact the Intel Xeon D, Intel Atom, and AMD EPYC 3000 series platforms.
Read more at: How tariffs hurt Intel Xeon D Atom and AMD EPYC 3000
