SMT passive worldwide shortage

[schmitt trigger]

Not a week passes by without the purchasing people advising me about some chip resistor or  MLCC shortages. They either go on allocation or their lead times have been extended to many, many months.

Are you suffering a similar situation?

[PTR_1275]

Yep. Got a email from future electronics the other week with typica leadtimes and trends. Some parts are so far backlogged that it was saying allocation full, meaning there is no more allocation for production available until Q3 2019.

Some parts we ordered in October 2017 have been pushed back several times now and the latest update was for delivery in Feb 2019.

[schmitt trigger]

What would you think are the main contributors for this situation?

Most people blame it that the passive market has literally grown exponentially, with even the lowliest gadget having some embedded electronics.

But there must be something else?

[CatalinaWOW]

This has happened at least four times in the last forty years.  Look at the worldwide economy.  Doing quite well thank you.  Everybody is building stuff and selling it successfully.  That is on top of all of the new applications.  Component manufacturers aren't keeping up.  Their financial watchdogs are reminding them of the last time they built capacity and got it on line just in time for the downturn.  So they are cautious about building up capacity.  And even with this caution they end up overbuilding when the next slowdown occurs.  And reinforce the caution for the next time around.

[NorthGuy]

I certainly noticed it with capacitors. You find something in stock, put in into your cart, press checkout, and it is already backordered. Happened to me few times.

I didn't notice it with resistors or anything else.

[DerekG]

Component manufacturers aren't keeping up.  Their financial watchdogs are reminding them of the last time they built capacity and got it on line just in time for the downturn.  So they are cautious about building up capacity.

Quite right.

During the GFC, the world economy shrank & component manufacturers shrank their inventory as they closed up excess plant capacity.

Now, they simply want the consumer to order on allocation. They will make the parts after they have received enough forward orders.

One part that has been hit really hard is the STM8S Value Line micros. These are probably the best 8 bit micro value in the world & delivery times have now blown out to 35 weeks.

https://www.digikey.com.au/product-detail/en/stmicroelectronics/STM8S003F3P6TR/497-18051-2-ND/4357536

https://www.digikey.com.au/product-detail/en/stmicroelectronics/STM8S003K3T6CTR/STM8S003K3T6CTR-ND/3455602

For medium to high volume production, Microchip & Atmel (now also Microchip) just can't compete.

[Bassman59]

Component manufacturers aren't keeping up.  Their financial watchdogs are reminding them of the last time they built capacity and got it on line just in time for the downturn.  So they are cautious about building up capacity.

Quite right.

During the GFC, the world economy shrank & component manufacturers shrank their inventory as they closed up excess plant capacity.

Now, they simply want the consumer to order on allocation. They will make the parts after they have received enough forward orders.

One part that has been hit really hard is the STM8S Value Line micros. These are probably the best 8 bit micro value in the world & delivery times have now blown out to 35 weeks.
For medium to high volume production, Microchip & Atmel (now also Microchip) just can't compete.

Seem to me the OEM has a choice: wait 35 weeks and manufacture and sell nothing in that time, or redesign for a part you can get in a reasonable time frame and bite the bullet on cost.

[DerekG]

Seem to me the OEM has a choice: wait 35 weeks and manufacture and sell nothing in that time, or redesign for a part you can get in a reasonable time frame and bite the bullet on cost.

Quite correct. No other choices. Remember to search www.octapart.com for any suppliers holding stock.

[rx8pilot]

Stick with modern parts. Forget about 0603/0805/larger unless you need double digit uF capacitance or more than 50V.
I don't see supply issues with 0402/0201.

There is truth in that.....
I have some power designs that use 1210 10uf/50v and 22uf/50v X7R and they are rather hard to find and very expensive now. Looking at switching those to polymer if I can take the size hit.

[DerekG]

Looking at switching those to polymer if I can take the size hit.

Yes, I can see the SMD robot stopping much more often .... not to mention increased rework.

[DerekG]

And in the meanwhile, solid tant are sometimes more expensive than polymer tant... Go figure!

It is due to a combination of volumes manufactured & the cost of the tantalum material itself.

[schmitt trigger]

Stick with modern parts. Forget about 0603/0805/larger unless you need double digit uF capacitance or more than 50V.
I don't see supply issues with 0402/0201.

That is also what I have heard.

Additionally, does anyone remember capacitor arrays? Those that would save you board space and assembly time? Not that long ago.....
Well...... the duals are being phased out. And the only manufacturer standing, AVX, has increased its lead time tremendously.

[calexanian]

This all started with Yaego taking on no extra orders for 2018 and the ripples went out from there. Also the auto industry and smart home automation is sucking up tons of supply on basically speculation. It is also a case of them as a community of manufacturers not wanting to add more production and therefore increase prices due to demand so its double in their favor. Sucks for us small guys. I have been seeing some real junk come in as substitutes from our vendors. I send it back and just find something suitable from Digikey. I just saw a case of through hole 25 volt at 1000 uf caps today from Taitron. I have not seen them since the great cap shortages of the 90's. They usually slum around and brand whatever they can get cheap and off spec. I tell our purchasing guy only buy specific brand and series caps from nichicon, panasonic, rubycon, and a few others, but they don't want to go searching for current stock and have the distributor send whatever they have.I have tried to explain ripple current, ESR, and life span on caps, but all they see is being lazy and cheap. A dangerous combo.   

[DerekG]

I tell our purchasing guy only buy specific brand and series caps from nichicon, panasonic, rubycon, and a few others, but they don't want to go searching for current stock and have the distributor send whatever they have.

Don't forget that in times like these, https://octopart.com can be a really good friend.

[rx8pilot]

I have stopped production on a number of my boards and re-designing some of the newer ones trying to avoid some of the worst offenders. I was using a lot of fairly large-ish MLCC's which are getting out of hand - even for small qty's.

Nuts.

[KEVBULL]

I got quotes today from authorised  distributors for Vishay MLCC and resistors with L/T - 120 weeks and 90 weeks resp.

[thermistor-guy]

I tell our purchasing guy only buy specific brand and series caps from nichicon, panasonic, rubycon, and a few others, but they don't want to go searching for current stock and have the distributor send whatever they have.

Don't forget that in times like these, www.octapart.com can be a really good friend.

I think you meant Octopart: https://octopart.com/

A few years ago, my boss at the time ordered me to throw out full reels of SMD passives and semiconductors that were duplicates - only keep one reel of each component. I was so uneasy about it, he confirmed more than once that this was what he wanted. Ended up with a pallet loaded high with reels. Out they went - diodes, BJTs, MOSFETs, JFETs, ceramic and tantalum caps, resistors, 0603, 0805, 1206, 1810. All reputable brands.

[DerekG]

I think you meant Octopart: https://octopart.com/

Quite right. I have corrected the typo.

I have stopped production on a number of my boards and re-designing some of the newer ones trying to avoid some of the worst offenders. I was using a lot of fairly large-ish MLCC's which are getting out of hand - even for small qty's.

Quite right. You can find out more about the shortages here:

https://www.ttiinc.com/content/ttiinc/en/resources/marketeye/categories/passives/me-zogbi-20180302.html

[D3f1ant]

Also redesigned a few products to get rid of the large value MLCCs. They are either unobtainable or very expensive compared to the physically larger Electrolytic polymer caps that would do the job adequately. Have also been stock piling 0.01, 0.1, 1.0 and 10uf in various sizes and voltages when I see a reel available to mitigate production risk going forward.
Some values of resistors are also getting hard to find.

[tszaboo]

Also redesigned a few products to get rid of the large value MLCCs. They are either unobtainable or very expensive compared to the physically larger Electrolytic polymer caps that would do the job adequately. Have also been stock piling 0.01, 0.1, 1.0 and 10uf in various sizes and voltages when I see a reel available to mitigate production risk going forward.
Some values of resistors are also getting hard to find.

Not everyone has the luxury to do this. If I have to respin a board, it starts with 10K+ in certification and 2Months+. So production should just stop for 2 months, right? And you cannot trust the suppliers anymore, because they confirm your backorder, and then halfway they tell you that they dont know it anymore.
So you order the same part from multiple vendors, just to make sure. Ant this is done by others also, not just you. So my need for 1 million 100nF 0402 just created 3 million in orders at 3 different places. I mean imagine the company shutting down production, because you didnt get MLCCs. Stupid right? And since everyone does this, they see an enormous increase of orders, snowballing.

[schmitt trigger]

We are like that, too.
Several of our customers are automotive and they want a full validation for even the slightest change.

A case in point. We had shortages of 0.1uF, 16V, X7R, 0603 MLCC. You know, the ones that you sprinkle on a board like salt and pepper. Our purchasing people told us that they had found a large cache of 25V caps from the same series from the same reputable vendor.

Well, the supplier quality engineer at our automotive customer wanted to perform all the validation tests, including EMI. Talking in excess of $25K and 8 weeks minimum.
So we had to procure from distributors, gray market components, and paying twice as much.

[thm_w]

We are like that, too.
Several of our customers are automotive and they want a full validation for even the slightest change.

A case in point. We had shortages of 0.1uF, 16V, X7R, 0603 MLCC. You know, the ones that you sprinkle on a board like salt and pepper. Our purchasing people told us that they had found a large cache of 25V caps from the same series from the same reputable vendor.

Well, the supplier quality engineer at our automotive customer wanted to perform all the validation tests, including EMI. Talking in excess of $25K and 8 weeks minimum.
So we had to procure from distributors, gray market components, and paying twice as much.

That is a bit shortsighted. Imagine the chance of getting counterfeit components would go way up. At least with the 25V part it should be reputable.
It was very common, in the airline industry at least, to write up a report on substituting a part and argue that it is equivalent enough to avoid testing. Maybe automotive is more strict? Or someone is being anal.

[DerekG]

We had shortages of 0.1uF, 16V, X7R, 0603 MLCC. You know, the ones that you sprinkle on a board like salt and pepper.

Unless these are in timing circuits, you can often replace them with 0.12uF, 0.15uF, 0.18uF or 0.22uF caps.

[rx8pilot]

We had shortages of 0.1uF, 16V, X7R, 0603 MLCC. You know, the ones that you sprinkle on a board like salt and pepper.

Unless these are in timing circuits, you can often replace them with 0.12uF, 0.15uF, 0.18uF or 0.22uF caps.

For bypass applications - that is almost always true but only if you are authorized to make the substitution. For many - that kind of stuff triggers a whole slew of test and validation / documentation.

[thermistor-guy]

We are like that, too.
Several of our customers are automotive and they want a full validation for even the slightest change.

A case in point. We had shortages of 0.1uF, 16V, X7R, 0603 MLCC. You know, the ones that you sprinkle on a board like salt and pepper. Our purchasing people told us that they had found a large cache of 25V caps from the same series from the same reputable vendor.

Well, the supplier quality engineer at our automotive customer wanted to perform all the validation tests, including EMI. Talking in excess of $25K and 8 weeks minimum.
So we had to procure from distributors, gray market components, and paying twice as much.

That is a bit shortsighted. Imagine the chance of getting counterfeit components would go way up. At least with the 25V part it should be reputable.
It was very common, in the airline industry at least, to write up a report on substituting a part and argue that it is equivalent enough to avoid testing. Maybe automotive is more strict? Or someone is being anal.

Not always shortsighted. Yes, some component substitutions can easily be justified. But if you rely on certain caps to meet EMI standards in a harsh environment, and then you change the caps, then I too would want the EMI testing redone.