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Just wonder what you think.
As it is still bad and not just in advanced semiconductors, all the way down.
A limited supply of optocouplers (fast ones), transistors are also out of stock, DC/DC bricks, nothing ... only thing reasonably stocked is passives -
It will most likely continue happening for at least 2 years.
The current fabs are very busy, some months ago some fabs got there production knocked out by a fire and similar disasters. They are building new ones, but that is going to take years to complete due to all the clean rooms and advanced machines required for one. In the mean time clients are buying up existing stock at the drop of a hat in fear of the components going out of stock making the issue even worse. Scalpers are buying up any stock they find and reselling it at literally 10x prices (Like common cheap ARM MCUs selling for >100$ a piece) since this is very profitable right now.
So it is going to take a while for them to catch up, stock to build up and for people to stop hoarding parts stock. -
and also if you work under immense pressure it is more easy to be nervous and make some mistake.
The real questions is how long will it take to get back to the same quantity and quality. -
I'll be the devil's advocate here, and say it may NEVER recover. Read the book The Collapse of Complex Societies, by Tainter.
What we are in looks a lot like the snowballing failures of interdependent systems discussed in that book. The same reason all societies in human history collapse. Except this time we have the most fragile, ridulously over complex, interdependent and easily broken economic/industrial system that ever existed. Major collapse processes NEVER halt and recover, they always proceed to the bottom. Time after time in history.
Not even allowing for oncoming new sources of disruption.
This Northern Hemisphere winter there are going to be severe food shortages worldwide, due to both major climate zone shifts (never mind the reason - warming or cooling) and also deliberate crop and food reserves destruction. http://www.voterig.com/farmers1.mp4 The CCP is seriously proposing to 'integrate' Taiwan, by war if necessary. Taiwan won't be building many semiconductors while they dig out of the rubble. Something between 30% to 70% of the population of Western nations are injected with new mRNA tech that potentially may have severe health downsides over a few years (no one knows, because there were no safety trials.) Governments attempting to cut the 'nasty selfish unvaccinated' off from all economic interaction (and that won't be a peaceful process.) People in positions of power (even here in Australia) gloatingly talking about a 'Great Reset' and 'New World Order' (in which, quote "You will own nothing and you will be happy" - also not going to happen peacefully.) A senile, corrupt old pedophile in charge of the world's top superpower, and apparently colluding with the worlds nastiest superpower leaders (CCP) to sell out his own nation. Having just completely destroyed all possibility of trust in his nation's ability to honor their commitments. The Saudis having recently signed a defence pact with Russia, and so there goes the petrodollar.
Here's a good video on the cascading supply chain disruptions:
Weird disruptions everywhere. Packages (mine) sitting for a month in LA waiting for space on some plane flying to Australia (because there are almost none.) The Southern NSW pine plantations racing to fell and mill all the pine trees that burned in the early 2020 bushfires - and yet if you want to buy some pine lumber in Sydney, there is none to be had. Has been none for months I'm told.
Then there's potental black swan events. Signs the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands might be about to do its big landslip trick. https://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/en/news-page/news-nation/earthquake-swarm-la-palma-if-blows-wipes-out-us-east-coast-via-tsunami
and simulation result:
At least if we wanted to try thowing some virgins, or more appropriately politicians into a volcano to appease the wrathful Gods, there's a really impressive one going in Iceland at the moment. Search on youtube for iceland volcano. I recommend this entertainiment while waiting for your packages to arrive. Especially the volcano drone videos.
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I'll be the devil's advocate here, and say it may NEVER recover. Read the book The Collapse of Complex Societies, by Tainter.
I usually enjoy your conspiracy theories, this time it's a bit too much for my taste though i agree with some points -
I'll be the devil's advocate here, and say it may NEVER recover. Read the book The Collapse of Complex Societies, by Tainter.
What we are in looks a lot like the snowballing failures of interdependent systems discussed in that book. The same reason all societies in human history collapse. Except this time we have the most fragile, ridulously over complex, interdependent and easily broken economic/industrial system that ever existed. Major collapse processes NEVER halt and recover, they always proceed to the bottom. Time after time in history.
I have to agree with you on this one. We are in a death spiral of "not available".
I cannot build temperature controllers for chemicals, because part are not here. They cannot use the controller to transport the chemicals, which is then used (for example) to paint your car. So you end up having delays of months for your car, because a single DC-DC controller is not in stock. Lead time: 52 weeks.
The available manufacturing capacity is used to make new iPhones. They are getting made because they have better layers.
I hope you enjoy your iPhones, and you can use it after society has collapsed, because industrial clients didn't get the parts that were needed to keep the infrastructure of everything working. Swipe and like.
2008 was just a banking crisis, some numbers were confused. Imagine your life, when you cannot buy a new fridge when the old one dies, because the adhesive used for the door sealant is not available.
I hope I'm wrong. -
I cannot build temperature controllers for chemicals, because part are not here. They cannot use the controller to transport the chemicals, which is then used (for example) to paint your car. So you end up having delays of months for your car, because a single DC-DC controller is not in stock. Lead time: 52 weeks.
Because people cannot buy new cars, they (or dealers) are buying the basket case cars that normally wouldn't be worth fixing.
Then they buy up all the parts to fix said car, thusly depleting the supply of spare parts. Cars are being written off as they cannot buy a window control ECU, within the time the insurance will put up with, paint is not the only issues.
It doesn't make a lot of sense in the big picture to release a new Iphone or Playstation.
All it takes is one small company making a limited production specialized device/part to derail an entire supply chain because they cannot get a 99c voltage regulator.
I know of one man company that sells lots of a particular module to a big company who use it in PLC. You wouldn't guess from looking at it, hate to think what would happen if they exhaust the last huge box he shipped them.
Element14's website is reporting some STM chips on backorder, expected delivery date in 2027!
So either their supplier really hate them, or these are worst case dates as they haven't been given a proper answer.Imagine your life, when you cannot buy a new fridge when the old one dies, because the adhesive used for the door sealant is not available.
Not need to imagine, we already had that with compressors. Factory making castings or something for the compressors also make parts for other things.
So they got hit with more demand from both sides, supply issues of their own, and increased shipping costs. Then they had to make all those dual compressor freezers for vaccines.
Supply and demand chain is completely upside down.
Demand has increased while supply has decreased, that rarely happens, plus it's happening across many areas.
Toyota changed their Just In Time policy after the 2011 earthquake, to create stockpiles of components from factories that take a long time to restart after such a disruption. Semiconductors were top of the list. Plus it was always Almost Just In Time, not that anyone else paid attention to that minor difference, and that it meant having a stockpile of some sort.
Things will only go back to normal with semiconductors when I can go onto Digikey/Mouser/RS/Element14 and just buy the parts for a prototype.
It's just not practical for individuals/companies to have their own personal stash of everything they might decide to use in a design.
Is that date in 2027? I hope not, and only STM are that screwed up.
Is the semiconductor supply problem too tightly bonded to the virus outbreaks to solve one without solving the other. It appears so given what's happening in Malaysia at the moment.
I'm going with end of 2025 to solve this calculated as:
1 year to fix current disruptions, Taiwan's water shortages, Texas blackout, Malaysia chip testing/packaging staffing, that fire in a fab, FUBAR logistics in general.
1 year to clear backordered products.
1 year to restock suppliers and deal with pent up demand, and delayed production. -
I'm going with end of 2025 to solve this calculated as:
1 year to fix current disruptions, Taiwan's water shortages, Texas blackout, Malaysia chip testing/packaging staffing, that fire in a fab, FUBAR logistics in general.
1 year to clear backordered products.
1 year to restock suppliers and deal with pent up demand, and delayed production.
And just imagine what can happen when that crazy commies decide to attack Taiwan for real (they won't, they are not totally insane) -
Here's another take on it. Copied from the net:Quote
WHY THE CHIP SHORTAGE REALLY HAPPENED
I saw this on a highly rated tech Youtube video, and I bet it is 100 percent accurate:
When people went into lockdown, many started working from home, and discovered their current computers were not up to the task, so an enormous pile of people worldwide bought new computers, new phones, NEW EVERYTHING. The chip shortage for cars is also easy to explain: None of the car manufacturers expected to be selling cars in the middle of an "outbreak" so a year ago, when they decided what they were going to do, they did not order enough chips that have to be custom made in many cases and fell short because of that, and with such a high demand for chips in other sectors, they are going to have to wait because none of the manufacturers can just puke up chips without notice. So unfinished cars have to sit.
That's a pretty good explanation, and I bet it is accurate, more chips than ever are being produced but demand has never been this high because everyone is stuck at home because of Covid. New TV's, new computers to work from, new phones, tablets, routers, the whole 9 yards, unilaterally, across the entire developed world.... when that crazy commies decide to attack Taiwan for real (they won't, they are not totally insane)
Ha ha, depending on the sanity and good judgement of Communists. In particular the CCP and Winnie. Have you been following developments in China recently?
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I'll be the devil's advocate here, and say it may NEVER recover.
Something between 30% to 70% of the population of Western nations are injected with new mRNA tech that potentially may have severe health downsides over a few years (no one knows, because there were no safety trials.)
Behold, the conspiracy antivax prepper.QuoteWeird disruptions everywhere. Packages (mine) sitting for a month in LA waiting for space on some plane flying to Australia (because there are almost none.)
Its not weird, they use the excess cargo space in passenger planes to ship your cheap cargo, since passenger flights are reduced, then you wait
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If you use Fedex or UPS they use their own planes and it gets there within a day or two.I have to agree with you on this one. We are in a death spiral of "not available".
I cannot build temperature controllers for chemicals, because part are not here. They cannot use the controller to transport the chemicals, which is then used (for example) to paint your car. So you end up having delays of months for your car, because a single DC-DC controller is not in stock. Lead time: 52 weeks.
The available manufacturing capacity is used to make new iPhones. They are getting made because they have better layers.
I hope you enjoy your iPhones, and you can use it after society has collapsed, because industrial clients didn't get the parts that were needed to keep the infrastructure of everything working. Swipe and like.
2008 was just a banking crisis, some numbers were confused. Imagine your life, when you cannot buy a new fridge when the old one dies, because the adhesive used for the door sealant is not available.
I hope I'm wrong.
So society will collapse because people can't buy new cars for a few years? Most people don't even need them in the first place. -
It's not just semiconductors, it's passives too. Went to get an HV resistor and the whole company store was disabled due to lack of inventory, and this was from Nicrom.
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No, it will collapse when some of the creature comforts will be taken away, then politicians will start finger pointing (doesn't matter to whom), and repeat the 20 century again, just with equipped with nukes.
So society will collapse because people can't buy new cars for a few years? Most people don't even need them in the first place.
Did you know, that it was almost impossible to buy eggs when the outbreak started? There are apparently 5 companies making those egg carton boxes in Europe and 3 of them closed down when the lockup started.
Probably we can name hundreds of chemical compounds, that are used everywhere, when even a small shortage would put verything upside down. Imagine not having enough PET. Or Diesel. And the issue is not that you cannot drive your diesel SUV and drink Cola. The issue is if the farmer who makes all the food that you eat, cannot buy the PET IBC to store the whatever chemical, or Diesel to drive the tractor. -
I'll be the devil's advocate here, and say it may NEVER recover.
Something between 30% to 70% of the population of Western nations are injected with new mRNA tech that potentially may have severe health downsides over a few years (no one knows, because there were no safety trials.)
Behold, the conspiracy antivax prepper.
The thing that has me scratching my head is why possible long term side effects of a vaccine overshadow the possible long term side effects of a virus. Covid-19 is too new to know what effects will be seen in survivors years or decades from now, but the short term side effects are certainly more severe than those of the available vaccines. All of the data I have seen so far very strongly suggests that the vaccines are safe and effective, especially compared to the virus. The virus has a high survival rate, but the vaccine has a survival rate orders of magnitude higher than that. We have no data that I'm aware of suggesting any kind of long term effects from mRNA vaccines however we have a significant amount of data indicating long term effects such as organ damage from Covid-19.
I suspect it boils down to an emotionally driven belief rather than any real logic.
On the topic of the shortage, I suspect we'll be feeling the ripple effects of it for several years, but I would expect things to mostly go back to normal within a few months of the Covid pandemic subsiding. Something that would quite possibly have happened already if not for the irrational vaccine hesitancy. My parents lived through the Polio epidemic and they remembered everyone lining up to get vaccinated shortly after the vaccine was developed. My mom doesn't recall meeting anyone who refused to get it. -
No, it will collapse when some of the creature comforts will be taken away, then politicians will start finger pointing (doesn't matter to whom), and repeat the 20 century again, just with equipped with nukes.
Did you know, that it was almost impossible to buy eggs when the outbreak started? There are apparently 5 companies making those egg carton boxes in Europe and 3 of them closed down when the lockup started.
Probably we can name hundreds of chemical compounds, that are used everywhere, when even a small shortage would put verything upside down. Imagine not having enough PET. Or Diesel. And the issue is not that you cannot drive your diesel SUV and drink Cola. The issue is if the farmer who makes all the food that you eat, cannot buy the PET IBC to store the whatever chemical, or Diesel to drive the tractor.
I've bought eggs in a basket before from a local farmer, no cartons required.
While not guaranteed to be available either, a Diesel tractor will run on cooking oil, kerosene, and various other substances. A gasoline tractor (or car) can be run on ethanol, methanol, propane, CNG and other fuels with minimal modification. I remember reading that during WWII it was not uncommon in some regions to run vehicles from a wood gassifier, that's certainly an option I could make use of here. I realize a majority of people are not nearly as resourceful or handy with their hands as I am though. -
Something between 30% to 70% of the population of Western nations are injected with new mRNA tech that potentially may have severe health downsides over a few years (no one knows, because there were no safety trials.)
... and not a sentence too soon, by the looks of it. -
While not guaranteed to be available either, a Diesel tractor will run on cooking oil, kerosene, and various other substances. A gasoline tractor (or car) can be run on ethanol, methanol, propane, CNG and other fuels with minimal modification. I remember reading that during WWII it was not uncommon in some regions to run vehicles from a wood gassifier, that's certainly an option I could make use of here. I realize a majority of people are not nearly as resourceful or handy with their hands as I am though.
Not current ones - in europe. Current vehichles are extremely picky about the fuel you put in them, plus you will obstruct all the stupid filters and scr systems in like zero time and make the vehichle uselss, because as per requirement from the law it won't even start if you remove the system and don't fool the ECU or reprogram it
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Yeah, I've already had to update the PCB designs for two of my products to use in-stock packages for the following components.
- USB FTDI chip from 28pin to 24pin version
- TVS array from SOIC to SO8 package
- MCU from SOIC to QFN -
The thing that has me scratching my head is why possible long term side effects of a vaccine overshadow the possible long term side effects of a virus
Truth, I know people even young ones who have problems with breath after mild covid
....
My parents lived through the Polio epidemic and they remembered everyone lining up to get vaccinated shortly after the vaccine was developed. My mom doesn't recall meeting anyone who refused to get it.
On the other hand, some people have a big reaction to vaccination, for example, high fevers for 14 days and so. No long-term effects. But cannot afford not going to work for this long time. It is a big problem.
Exactly, we no longer have a right to repair. No one can modify the fuel system anymore. First, you have no tools for it. And second, it is illegal and hard lobbied so it won't be released even at the end of the world situation. Modern ECU will just refuse to run a modified engine.While not guaranteed to be available either, a Diesel tractor will run on cooking oil, kerosene, and various other substances. A gasoline tractor (or car) can be run on ethanol, methanol, propane, CNG and other fuels with minimal modification. I remember reading that during WWII it was not uncommon in some regions to run vehicles from a wood gassifier, that's certainly an option I could make use of here. I realize a majority of people are not nearly as resourceful or handy with their hands as I am though.
Not current ones - in europe. Current vehichles are extremely picky about the fuel you put in them, plus you will obstruct all the stupid filters and scr systems in like zero time and make the vehichle uselss, because as per requirement from the law it won't even start if you remove the system and don't fool the ECU or reprogram itYeah, I've already had to update the PCB designs for two of my products to use in-stock packages for the following components.
- USB FTDI chip from 28pin to 24pin version
- TVS array from SOIC to SO8 package
- MCU from SOIC to QFN
Yeah that shortage of package is annoying but makes sense to limit variety to little boost production
I'll have to start using QFN MCUs on prototypes
I know they are going faster and faster bask to hardcore communism because of their economy and population issues. But I think they will be just the new USSR (or big brother of DPRK) with closed borders (as they are now slowly closing) and trying to keep people silent. They are more of a barking dog with no teeth and barely standing.... when that crazy commies decide to attack Taiwan for real (they won't, they are not totally insane)
Ha ha, depending on the sanity and good judgement of Communists. In particular the CCP and Winnie. Have you been following developments in China recently? -
This is not going to stop in N years. This is the new status quo while we have just in time manufacturing everywhere. We pushed cost down at the cost of increasing risk. We happened to have a global event that tripped all the risks.
The only outcome is that costs increase massively to provide redundancy via multi sourcing.
Back when I worked in the defence sector we multi sourced most stuff and what we couldn’t was bought in massive quantities to act as stock for repairs and future supply. And the clients were charged up front for that.
What killed some of this is the ridiculous product refresh cycles we see these days. We need to slow everything down. -
My guess is that it will take about 1.5 years before we see a noticeable improvement. But will probably take another 1.5 years after that before it's back to something that resembles normality for common parts. However that assumes covid19 ends and nothing else comes along like covid20 etc.
I expect some chip variants or package versions probably wont come back at all.
The manufacturers will all be focused on fulfilling chips that are in-demand, so some chips that are approaching last time buy or simply not sold in large volumes will likely vanish a lot sooner than they would have otherwise.
I expect we will see consolidation between similar package options.
Where the same chip came in a 24 pin and 28 pin version they will likely drop one.
Drop in MCU variants with 2/4/8/16KB flash may see the 2KB and 8KB versions vanish because they know all their customers can simply upgrade to the next size version and any increase in cost is just part of the times.
Of course that does depend on if the flash size variants are actually a different die or not. You lose most of the advantage in dropping some lines if they're all the same die and it's just a binning process based on flash manufacturing errors.
There will also be long term strategizing in play.
Thinking along the lines of "If we drop chip variants X and Y we can get our customers to upgrade to the more expensive chip variant now under the cover of a covid supply issues. Then they will be stuck on them after the dust settles." -
Not current ones - in europe. Current vehichles are extremely picky about the fuel you put in them, plus you will obstruct all the stupid filters and scr systems in like zero time and make the vehichle uselss, because as per requirement from the law it won't even start if you remove the system and don't fool the ECU or reprogram it
That is annoying, although I was surprised to discover some time back that I could make a small (lawnmower type) engine run quite well with the carburetor completely removed by just poking a hose from a propane tank into the intake. I'm pretty confident that if push came to shove I could convert a relatively modern car to run on some alternative fuel. One of my cars has both the original fuel and ignition systems removed and replaced with the open source Megasquirt, it's a bit of a hassle to get it dialed in but it will work on just about any non-hybrid ICE. Marine engines are also mostly devoid of any of the modern mandated automotive tech and many are marinised versions of production car engines so that is another option. -
This is not going to stop in N years. This is the new status quo while we have just in time manufacturing everywhere. We pushed cost down at the cost of increasing risk. We happened to have a global event that tripped all the risks.
The only outcome is that costs increase massively to provide redundancy via multi sourcing.
Back when I worked in the defence sector we multi sourced most stuff and what we couldn’t was bought in massive quantities to act as stock for repairs and future supply. And the clients were charged up front for that.
What killed some of this is the ridiculous product refresh cycles we see these days. We need to slow everything down.
What changed to this can be changed back. If it continues to be a catastrophe some smart company somewhere will figure this out and implement something that works. -
Truth, I know people even young ones who have problems with breath after mild covid
On the other hand, some people have a big reaction to vaccination, for example, high fevers for 14 days and so. No long-term effects. But cannot afford not going to work for this long time. It is a big problem.
Some people, yes, but they are exceptionally rare. I don't have the actual data in front of me but I would speculate that for every one person that has a serious reaction from the vaccine there are probably 1,000 or even 10,000 people that have a serious reaction to the Covid virus. There is a non-zero chance of having a severe reaction and dying from eating some ordinary item of food, but it is still safer to eat food than to not, because you will eventually die if you don't. Seatbelts occasionally kill somebody who would have survived had they not been wearing one, but no sane person is going to suggest that seatbelts don't work, we have massive amounts of data saying otherwise. Being out of work for 14 days would be a big problem for a lot of people, but I'm going to guess that if they are dead or even just end up in the hospital due to a virus infection they will miss a lot more work. -
Got an email today from a manufacturer saying some factories in Guangdong province are now working 2 days a week and some are stopping for one month immediately because of electricity limit the government just announced.
I think China often has pollution problems in the fall as everyone turns their heaters on. I remember reading about some shutdowns because of it in previous years. Guessing this electricity limit might have something to do with that. -
Commodities pricing is just crazy. Almost all of them- coal, copper, aluminum, natural gas are 150-200% up. Coal is up 160%.
I wonder when china will cower and buy more Australian coal
But factories in guangdong starving for power is a disaster heading into winter.
There is some kind of big bubble inflating, with energy, commodities and shipping costs.