How is Chipageddon affecting you?

[JPortici]

I suspect this won't happen because TI and the likes love vendor lock in -- it benefits them even when supplies are short.  But one can dream!

Problem is that it's difficult to find parts with the same pinout among the same manufacturer as well.

[TimFox]

Any updates on the effect of the recent earthquakes in Taiwan on semiconductor delivery?

[Black Phoenix]

Any updates on the effect of the recent earthquakes in Taiwan on semiconductor delivery?

https://technode.com/2022/09/19/semiconductor-firms-continue-operation-as-earthquake-hits-taiwan/

Nothing to worry about.

[tom66]

The latest pain we have is sourcing MEMS/silicon oscillators.  Seems most are on 52+ week lead times.

[BravoV]

Car manufacturers like Ford still do suffer, even today.

40K vehicles stuck idling in warehouse is definitely hurt, a lot. 

[Ed.Kloonk]

Car manufacturers like Ford still do suffer, even today.

40K vehicles stuck idling in warehouse is definitely hurt, a lot. 

They never specify what parts are missing.

[tom66]

Could be anything.  Cars are regulatory nightmares.  If they can't get an AEC-Q100 approved LDO for some ECU that's important to the driveline, then no car for you.

Earlier in the year it was reported Ford was driving individual trucks off the assembly line by using a few spare engine controllers, whilst they waited for the final parts to come in.

[rsjsouza]

It might well be regulations for automakers, but on the other hand even common household appliances seem to have an extremely long leadtime, at least around where I live in the US. Several friends that had to replace large appliances (dishwasher, clothes washer or drier) and even HVAC condenser/evaporator coil combos had to wait for 3/4 months to get their equipment installed.

There is a choke on the system somewhere that is quite unclear to me...

[tom66]

It might well be regulations for automakers, but on the other hand even common household appliances seem to have an extremely long leadtime, at least around where I live in the US. Several friends that had to replace large appliances (dishwasher, clothes washer or drier) and even HVAC condenser/evaporator coil combos had to wait for 3/4 months to get their equipment installed.

There is a choke on the system somewhere that is quite unclear to me...

Seems to be no shortage of those appliances here - but perhaps some of it is just labour for install or manufacture? 

The pandemic killed some ~5-15 million people depending on how closely you associate a death with COVID infection.  In whatever metric, this is not insignificant.  Many of these people would have been retired, as COVID tended to affect those who were older the most, but no doubt many working age people were included in that.

So you have, let's say, about 2 million working who are no longer working.  Then you have the long term sick.  Those who ended up on ventilators, or those who got longer term sickness (often known as Long COVID, but it's more than one disease, and it expresses itself from mild symptoms to serious ones in all age groups.) In the UK it's estimated an additional 500k people are off sick right now than would otherwise be expected.
 
And then you have the people who decided that they were close to retirement and thought they would just take early retirement, or those who took the opportunity during furlough/unemployment to reskill or go into higher education, or perhaps they emigrated back home or took jobs in other countries.

All in this has created a huge labour shock - we have gone from an economy, at least at the lower skilled end, where many employers could pick a candidate within a few days of losing one, to one where vacancies can be open for months or in some cases never filled.

This is a great time - sans the recession(!!) - to be an employee as you have more negotiating power - but it is clearly having an impact on supply chains and productivity.

There are other issues with supply chains due to shipping container shortages and earlier in the pandemic air freight shortages due to fewer passenger aircraft flying.  I am not sure how these are doing right now but presumably even if they are close to resolution they still have a longer term ripple effect as industries run short of parts to produce product 12-24 months down the line.

[Kasper]

Could be anything.  Cars are regulatory nightmares.  If they can't get an AEC-Q100 approved LDO for some ECU that's important to the driveline, then no car for you.

Earlier in the year it was reported Ford was driving individual trucks off the assembly line by using a few spare engine controllers, whilst they waited for the final parts to come in.

Even if you can get an AEC-Q100 approved LDO, you might need to do some testing, documentation, etc before you can use it and that might take longer than the original LDO shipment.

[cortex_m0]

It might well be regulations for automakers, but on the other hand even common household appliances seem to have an extremely long leadtime, at least around where I live in the US.

Weird, I've not really encountered that. I bought a dishwasher in January, the store offered me delivery as soon as 3 days. Looking at today's online inventory of the store where I bought it (Lowes), they have a couple dozen dishwashers stocked at the store, and many hundreds at their warehouses for delivery in 3 to 7 days.

Washing machiines are similar: About 60 store stock, with more available in a few days. A few models show estimated delivery dates in mid-December, so ~7 weeks.

They never specify what parts are missing.

It sounds like it changes pretty frequently. I heard one of the production slowdowns at Ford this spring was because a part of the windshield wipers were unavailble - wasn't clear if the problem was an electrical module to drive the wipers, or a mechanical piece of the wiper assembly. That was just after the Canadian trucker protest, so it could have just been delayed supply from Ontario.

[chickenHeadKnob]

apologies if this has already been posted:

Chip Shortage 'Will Last Until Next Year'

Head of Renesas predicts shortage to last to mid 2023.
quote -The problem is not a shortage of key semiconductors, but a lack of minor chips used in peripherals," said Renesas CEO Hidetoshi Shibata (50) in Tokyo on Sep. 13. He said people might be surprised the "minor" chips even exist and it will "take time" for the shortage to ease.

I think people of the EEVblog forum know these minor chips exist.
Mostly content free article here. https://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2022/09/23/2022092301225.html

[Hydrawerk]

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/newest-pace-ads200-production-station-(a-jbc-killer-at-$239)/msg4432894/#msg4432894

[VK3DRB]

Now that there is a very high change the world is entering a major global recession, maybe chips will become available to SME's as orders in the likes of TI are are cancelled by the big manufacturers. On the other hand maybe chip manufacturers like TI will cut back production because their forecasting is so hopeless. Maybe chips will free up temporarily until demands outstrips supply again. The next six months will be interesting. A big recession can good in some ways.

[PlainName]

Aren't recessions useful when they are local (to a country or currency)? Supplied goods and services appear cheaper because the currency falls against everyone else, so balance of trade trends towards lots of export, hence income. But with a global recession everyone is in the same boat (apart from the US, apparently) so no-one can afford your now cheaper goods.

[tom66]

A recession will give supply chains time to catch up, as they've been chasing high demand for some time.  Even a slump in demand at the semiconductor level of a few percent would give relief I expect.

I do feel that any recession will be comparably shallow though compared to e.g. 2008 - as consumers are still spending like wild and confidence remains high even in Europe with high nat gas prices

[Kjelt]

A possible issue might be that if orders are cancelled or demand drops significantly that outstanding production orders will also be cancelled.
In other words some chips might not be made at all. 

[coppice]

A possible issue might be that if orders are cancelled or demand drops significantly that outstanding production orders will also be cancelled.
In other words some chips might not be made at all. 

The behaviour of semiconductor downturns is fairly well understood, as there have been a lot of them. Surviving a large downturn has a lot to do with predicting the downturn well enough to NOT produce in excess. Excessive stock can be a financial disaster, and has doomed many companies. Most of it eventually ends up in landfill, as so many of the high volume parts have a narrow market window, and nobody wants them once the market picks up again.

[AndyC_772]

Not sure I can see circumstances under which the world suddenly decides it doesn't want STM32F4xxx ever again. Or all those TI voltage regulators and op-amps I've designed in over the years.

[tom66]

Not sure I can see circumstances under which the world suddenly decides it doesn't want STM32F4xxx ever again. Or all those TI voltage regulators and op-amps I've designed in over the years.

It's not that it won't be wanted, it's that there will be a little less demand.  Semiconductor manufacturers have basically been filling inventory at big OEMs and manufacturers and scalpers have grabbed supply.  If that relaxes, then distributors will begin to take more stock. Also, some of that stock will get released through brokers which will cause relaxation in demand everywhere.  ST and friends are trying to avoid gross oversupply but they won't have full visibility of inventory and demand.

[jayk]

The latest pain we have is sourcing MEMS/silicon oscillators.  Seems most are on 52+ week lead times.

I've found SiTime is still delivering with decent lead-times, but only the more expensive grades.  Recently had a part go to 52-week lead-time, but the higher-temp/-accuracy (more expensive) version was still reasonable.

[SiliconWizard]

I think we all know that, but component hoarding in Asia is amazing.
Just to get an idea, you can look for a few hard-to-get parts on Mouser, Digikey, Arrow, etc... the usual. And then distributors such as https://www.vigor.com.sg. And see what kind of stock they have for parts that have 0 stock in the west.

[MT]

Mmkay, so are Vigor yet another asian scammer or do they actually have a stock? E.g stock on STM32H7 are stunningly high! While LCSC most of the time have none!

[thinkfat]

Mmkay, so are Vigor yet another asian scammer or do they actually have a stock? E.g stock on STM32H7 are stunningly high! While LCSC most of the time have none!

Or, almost one million BQ25015 EVMs. As if there ever were that many of them actually produced. TI not listing them as an authorized distributor is just a sidenote.

[tom66]

I'm 95% sure that the vast majority of those numbers of stock are lies.  I think Octopart would do the world a favour if they stopped listing untrustworthy brokers.  Not sure how you verify stock but maybe X reports that stock did not exist after enquiring with supplier.