How is Chipageddon affecting you?

[tszaboo]

The difference this time is, it's not just limited to the electronics industry. It's across all industries, from raw materials to the delivery of finished products.

Yes. Other parts are becoming problematic. For example we have trouble buying the usual glass filled nylon.
It could be that they have an issue buying one of the additive, or the colorant, and the company who makes those have trouble buying the vat for it.
Because the controller board for the vat has trouble getting the ICs to make it work. And we come full circle.

The only way out of it would be preferential allocation for industrial clients. Apple has no supply issue, because they have more layers than engineers. In the meantime, small, niche manufacturers (like where I work) has trouble getting parts, because we don't sue if they are not delivered. So it is cheaper to not deliver to us. The issue is, at the end of the day, we make the infrastructure for the companies to be able to extend their manufacturing or transportation needs.
So if you ship to machine builders, they build machines, and you slowly build up larger capacity to cover the need. If you dont, instead you use the capacity to build gadgets, then people thow out the old gadgets, and meanwhiel the manufacturing capacity slowly decreases.

Shorter cycle: Imagine ASML not getting ICs to build the factories to build more ICs.
So solution: Everyone allocate production to industrial clients. No exceptions. Make it a law.

We're dealing with a supply chain issue. A big problem is the JIT inventory approach. If your inventory water marks are too low then when there's shortages of raw materials (chips, plastics, etc) you're likely going to be line-down when there's a global shortage due to something like a pandemic. The best solution would simply to be cognizant of issues like this and to increase inventory watermarks/safety stocks in the future.

I always had that battle when working at a startup. Yes, those Spartan6s aren't cheap, but if the specific package we use goes out of stock on DigiKey we can't make the product for a couple months. Just always have six months of material on-hand in the pipeline in whatever mix of final assemblies, sub-assemblies, and raw materials that make sense. If you're an industrial or medical company you really need to be sure to have the proper safety stock protocols in place with your CMs and suppliers to always have sufficient stock of materials in place.

Since this is a global issue and not a national one, the only thing you could likely legislate is that for national security critical applications (military, medical, infrastructure, etc) that they have to maintain a sufficient pipleline of safety stock.

Most products that we are selling are made for order. Meaning that sometimes there is no orders for months, sometimes the entire production will do those assemblies. That's how it is in a B2B environment, and that's impossible to plan. Especially, how would you plan ahead for a year of production, because lead times are that long now.
If  I cannot make that temperature controller, then our client will not be able to transport their chemicals. It will just go bad during transport, they need it. If they cannot transport their chemical, then suddenly you will run out of shampoo at the local supermarket. Or they will not be able to use it as an additive in the plastic factory, and a car manufacturer will not be able to deliver the preordered cars. Or a thousand other exapmles.
There are companies, that build infrastructure, equipment for other companies. It might be that I cannot build that controller, because the power supply chip is used in a bluetooth headset, that sits in someone's drawer, never used.
This is not something that just goes away, this could easily lead into a death spiral of not available parts/products and services.

[SilverSolder]

[...] Now, they want me to buy 2000 minimum!  That's a $30,000 order!  They said that was the manufacturer' minimum.  Well isn't that the JOB of a distributor?  Buy a bunch and then sell them in smaller quantity? [...]

Exactly...   a distributor fronts the capital to invest in a warehouse full of parts, which they then sell in smaller quantities with fast turnaround, over time, at a profit.

Imagine a distributor that got ahead of the curve, bought up a lot of supplies, and were able to supply parts now (even at a higher price...  we would all be grateful just to be able to get them)...

[IDEngineer]

Imagine a distributor that got ahead of the curve, bought up a lot of supplies, and were able to supply parts now (even at a higher price...  we would all be grateful just to be able to get them)...

You have just perfectly described a "broker". They're making a killing right now. But it's a higher-than-normal-risk business model because if they guess WRONG they can easily get stuck with a lot of parts for which they overpaid once supplies become more readily available again.

[radar_macgyver]

DF11 connector shells now out of stock at US distributors, except for oddball sizes. Does anyone know if there's a compatible connector from other vendors? The Molex Milli-grid 2.0 seems like a match.

[coppice]

You have just perfectly described a "broker". They're making a killing right now. But it's a higher-than-normal-risk business model because if they guess WRONG they can easily get stuck with a lot of parts for which they overpaid once supplies become more readily available again.

Yeah, the brokers must be so busy right now, they will barely have time to look at luxury cars and houses. They are like bankruptcy lawyers in a bad economy - when most people are having a bad time, they are having the time of their lives.

[Howardlong]

Regarding managing expectations, and a warning...

I have three outstanding orders for a part in production packaging from RS, the first one placed in April, when scheduled delivery date was a couple of weeks later. Sure enough, the order showed up as dispatched, but no tracking number, however for RS that's not unusual IME. The parts are sent direct to my CEM.

In the meantime, bearing in  mind the current shortages, I placed a couple more orders for the same part both with delivery dates showing 11 August 2021. I'd recently been tracking these orders as they're the only part I'm short on, and that delivery date had come in a bit, finally to 28 July 2021.

So yesterday I nonchalantly called up asking RS about these orders as they were now all showing "dispatched" but no tracking number, and it turns out... nothing had been dispatched, there was no stock, but the website showed 5665 units in stock.

I had an apologetic email today... and the orders are now all cancelled with delivery dates now well into 2022.

Concerned this would happen, I also went the broker route for backup quotes last week. This is usually a $1 part, but I am seeing anything between $5 and $15 at the moment. They've got us by the bollocks.

[madires]

Microsoft: Component Shortages Not Going Away Any Time Soon: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/21/07/28/2029201/microsoft-component-shortages-not-going-away-any-time-soon (report of Q4 FY21 earnings). Even power cords are hard to come by.

[sleemanj]

Even power cords are hard to come by.

They obviously havn't looked in the requisite hoards of any EEVBlog members

[tom66]

Regarding managing expectations, and a warning...

We surprised ourselves by placing an order for Zynq FPGAs from Digi-Key back in December.

Digi-Key had indicated that delivery of parts would be April and then July.  And to their credit they kept almost exactly to that schedule, the only slippage being the July parts were delayed a week.  So we managed to get 270 Zynq's on pre-order.

In my experience Digi-Key are pretty solid and reasonable, but RS & Farnell don't care at all.   I've had so many orders screwed up by Farnell that I make an active choice to avoid ordering from them unless they're the only option, I can't afford mistakes any more.

[alegend]

Got a project running for years.... a PIC16 used and not many other parts

Couple of weeks ago, microchipdirect indicated a supply date of 1-DEC-2021, thousands of ICs available for delivery it said

So placed an order, paid good $$$, maxed out my credit card

A couple of days later, an apologetic email received, there has been a glitch in the ordering system (?), I will be notified soon of the delivery date

Then yesterday, a nicely formatted email message has indicated the supply date is 1-MAY-2023.

That is a good 18 months delay.

Just FYI buyer beware, now trying to assess my options

[CDN_Torsten]

alegend - I had a very similar issue with Microchip Direct.

Placed an order for parts which were in stock. Delivery expected within 7 days.
A few days later I received an email notification which indicated a change in my order...the expected delivery date moved to October 2022!

I contacted MCHP, the person was surprised by this and had my order escalated to their planning/scheduling department.
Following this, I received several more updates, one indicated there was a 'glitch' in their system, another indicated my expected ship date has changed to February 2022. 
Several more days passed...and then suddenly I received notification that my order had shipped.

Parts are now in hand...but the journey was stressful...

[alegend]

So even the "in stock" indication cannot be trusted? or can it ??

Perhaps I should wildly place random orders for random "in stock" parts and hope one of them is delivered by December. Then I will change my project to fit whatever PIC16 I can get, and cancel all the other orders

Or is it indeed what everyone else is already doing right now and I seriously missed the boat

alegend - I had a very similar issue with Microchip Direct.

Placed an order for parts which were in stock. Delivery expected within 7 days.
A few days later I received an email notification which indicated a change in my order...the expected delivery date moved to October 2022!

I contacted MCHP, the person was surprised by this and had my order escalated to their planning/scheduling department.
Following this, I received several more updates, one indicated there was a 'glitch' in their system, another indicated my expected ship date has changed to February 2022. 
Several more days passed...and then suddenly I received notification that my order had shipped.

Parts are now in hand...but the journey was stressful...

[Gribo]

To the person who posted earlier about the AP6320x - I have found an alternative which I am going to validate soon, the SCT3221. I hope it doesn't spew too much EMI.
 

[rx8pilot]

My current situation is that I have cancelled my commercial electronics projects for now and focusing on mechanical systems only. I have been designing and manufacturing mechanical only products for a long time.....now it is the majority.

As additional income - repairing commercial equipment that cannot be replaced because new units are not available. The gear that was not economical to repair is suddenly worth repairing regardless of what it costs. I really don't want to be a repair house, but it helps at the moment since I cannot build new products.

[SilverSolder]

My current situation is that I have cancelled my commercial electronics projects for now and focusing on mechanical systems only. I have been designing and manufacturing mechanical only products for a long time.....now it is the majority.

As additional income - repairing commercial equipment that cannot be replaced because new units are not available. The gear that was not economical to repair is suddenly worth repairing regardless of what it costs. I really don't want to be a repair house, but it helps at the moment since I cannot build new products.

Nothing wrong with repairing stuff - it helps people, helps the planet.  We needed to get back to that...

[rs20]

Needed an STMicro MCU, and after looking through a dozen broadly similar/mutually-compatible parts, the only distributor listed on the STMicro "Buy/Sample" pages that had any stock was this TOTALLY normal and not-at-all-suspicious-looking site.  But based on a combination of a) desperation to complete my project and b) a potentially very naive sense that STMicro surely wouldn't directly link me to a vendor of fake chips (right? right? ), I went ahead and made the order.

DHL have a package on the way to me... I hope the chips are authentic, or at least work well enough for my purposes...

[KE5FX]

My current situation is that I have cancelled my commercial electronics projects for now and focusing on mechanical systems only. I have been designing and manufacturing mechanical only products for a long time.....now it is the majority.

Dude, that sucks, really sorry to hear it.  Can I have your scope?   

[nctnico]

My current situation is that I have cancelled my commercial electronics projects for now and focusing on mechanical systems only. I have been designing and manufacturing mechanical only products for a long time.....now it is the majority.

At least you have that luxury... I'm jumping through hoops to get projects going using alternative solutions. Board deliveries delayed by 6+ months even though I ordered parts in advance once the news of potential shortages stared to emerge. I also found out that you can get legit parts and desoldered parts from Ebay 

[floobydust]

Marty, is there something wrong with the earth's gravitational pull?
2N7002; 855,951 On Order; Factory Lead-Time: 98 Weeks

What's the point in building these penny parts, onsemi doesn't seem to have it together.

[harerod]

There is an English version somewhere in this forum, but this is the German version.

I present you: Farnell on STM32F407VGT6!

I concur with the poster of the original - if that were actual delivery times, it would effectively mean that this MCU had been obsoleted.

First pic is June, 24th, the others October, 1st.

[cortex_m0]

What's the point in building these penny parts, onsemi doesn't seem to have it together.

Surely that's the point of using a part like the 2N7002 which has second sources? If OnSemi can't deliver, you have Nexperia, Diodes Inc, MCC, and others waiting in line to take your money.

[rx8pilot]

Dude, that sucks, really sorry to hear it.  Can I have your scope?   

 

I am still designing and testing for fun and education. My tiny factory has a substantial stash of parts from all my projects, enough to build one-offs but not enough for any production. The good news is that the fancy scope is still well used most days of the week. 

I am designing and building a linear amplifier for ham radio use which is really fun. Home automation widgets, multi-pump air compressor controller, and some 12gbps transceiver projects (mainly to see if I can do it).

I can't support myself on this stuff, but I can have some fun until stock levels improve.

[rx8pilot]

At least you have that luxury... I'm jumping through hoops to get projects going using alternative solutions. Board deliveries delayed by 6+ months even though I ordered parts in advance once the news of potential shortages stared to emerge. I also found out that you can get legit parts and desoldered parts from Ebay 

I am very thankful that I have an option to switch gears quickly. My ADD is finally paying off 

[floobydust]

What's the point in building these penny parts, onsemi doesn't seem to have it together.

Surely that's the point of using a part like the 2N7002 which has second sources? If OnSemi can't deliver, you have Nexperia, Diodes Inc, MCC, and others waiting in line to take your money.

It's not really about finding the part. This is a 40 year old jellybean mosfet made by many companies.
It's the absurd lead-times, 2 years    I wouldn't think OnSemi/Fairchild would be that long out, why even bother with the precious silicon/fab you have, to make small fish?

[tszaboo]

What's the point in building these penny parts, onsemi doesn't seem to have it together.

Surely that's the point of using a part like the 2N7002 which has second sources? If OnSemi can't deliver, you have Nexperia, Diodes Inc, MCC, and others waiting in line to take your money.

It's not really about finding the part. This is a 40 year old jellybean mosfet made by many companies.
It's the absurd lead-times, 2 years    I wouldn't think OnSemi/Fairchild would be that long out, why even bother with the precious silicon/fab you have, to make small fish?

They clearly allocated fab space for parts with more profit. In fact, because it is a jelly bean part, it is probably better if they produce more custom parts on their fab instead of this. For example those digital transistors, with the built in resistor, that one is probably made on the same fab, same package, and doesn't have a second source, and requires redesign. They should make those.