Part of my job is to find substitutes for these scenarios. And indeed, I've had to use the trick to replace 0.1uF caps with 0.15uF or 0.2uF. Or in less-than-critical circuit applications, I go down to a lower value.
We have had to do the same.
Hmm, but that would mean they give all that business to their competitors instead? or ar you saying there are basically only three manufacturers of MLCC caps?
The big three have >80% of the market volume ... the small guys don't have the volume to cope up with demand on the lines that are going out. They are fighting for 20% of volume between the 10 of them ...
The big guys just shut down their lines to use them to build much more profitable parts. 0.1uf is NOT a money winner... take it, you can have it. we'll build more lucrative parts. the smartphone market is stagnant and the fabs are headed where there is growth : automotive and energy.
Murata just invest 1 billion$ to convert their lines , and add 20% capacity ) to do automotive/energy only parts.
-snip- Murata Manufacturing plans to invest as much as 100 billion yen ($933 million) through fiscal 2019 to boost capacity for electronic components used in electric vehicles, seeking a fresh growth driver as the smartphone market plateaus.
The Japanese company will spend between 50 billion and 100 billion yen to expand ceramic capacitor production facilities in the western Japanese prefecture of Shimane and outside the Philippine capital of Manila. It aims to increase capacity by 20% with a focus on parts for electric vehicles. This would represent one of Murata's largest-ever investments in capacitors.
Ceramic capacitors are used in autos to adjust electrical signals from key parts such as motors and inverters and ensure they function properly. Automotive capacitors require greater durability than those found in smartphones. The nascent autonomous-driving field is expected to bolster demand.-/snip-
Starting to think I should start brokering components. Better than fucking around in the commodities and currency markets.
Naaaaah most components are only "good" for one or two years after which decent companies won't touch them.
Besides, large companies have their fixed quotums set for each year, deals are made a year in advance and unless some product becomes unexpectedly popular they can and will produce what they planned to produce. So who to sell the old stock to
Most of our pcb-suppliers told is about the problem months ago and they massivly stocked up so they don't run out of caps.
Let's see how long there stock lasts.
I'm realy suprised that the cga-series from TDK is actualy aviable. I think these are quite decent caps.
The most annoying part for me is that the capacitors that are left are absolutely appalling in terms of DC bias. I've had to spend multiple hours finding replacement capacitors, and in the end I've typically had to increase the package size 
Increasing in package size is not a bad thing in some respects:
https://pdfserv.maximintegrated.com/en/an/TUT5527.pdfhttps://www.findchips.com/search/0.1uf%200603%20cap
https://www.digikey.com/products/en/capacitors/ceramic-capacitors/60?k=0.1uf+0603&k=&pkeyword=0.1uf+0603&pv16=5&FV=ffe0003c&quantity=0&ColumnSort=1000011&page=1&stock=1&nstock=1&pageSize=25
Trust me this 40K will disappear in about a minute.
Still there! PO Being Raised as we speak! They didn't come up when I searched Digikey....
Anyway I've had to order some 150nF from closer suppliers as well cos even 120nF are taking a hit.
I think I smell BS....this has never been a problem before?
In around 1994/5 it did big time, everyone was talking about the "spot market", big telecom elephants was affected and bought from grand/pa/mom backyard outlet to get hold of components, that time it was mainly semiconductors and some passives i recall.These spot market suppliers made big time money from nothing, the prices for some components was just baffling.
Remember when Fukushima happened? There was a little lull in stock I remember, but nothing this bad. It recovered very quickly.
This all seem very odd, the fact that there are some articles I've read that this was forecast, why has production not been ramped up prior? Guy I work with (bit of a doom merchant) said its all going into weapons and bombs for some sort of impending war! unlikely....I hope!
further more I've just been talking to an assembly house. They said they were told a "while ago" to stock up on any passives starting with a 1...kind of implies this was forseen?
Self fulfilling prediction?
Is 'smart tech' production really exploding, or are large companies just trying to buy twice their usual consumption to stock up?
Guy I work with (bit of a doom merchant) said its all going into weapons and bombs for some sort of impending war! unlikely....I hope!
Have you seen the topic with mlcc microcracks, for some reason I do not think they will put those in critical defense applications such as weapons and bombs, at least I hope they don't
Guy I work with (bit of a doom merchant) said its all going into weapons and bombs for some sort of impending war! unlikely....I hope!
Have you seen the topic with mlcc microcracks, for some reason I do not think they will put those in critical defense applications such as weapons and bombs, at least I hope they don't
Maybe they use the ones with flexible termination.
On my last assembly order, I specified a 0.1uF cap in stock at Digikey/Mouser. But I also specified that substitution was ok, because every assembler will have decoupling caps on hand, and my order was not in the 10K+ range. I also gave them a pretty wide range of acceptable capacitance, voltage, tolerance, and temp coefficient. They sent me an alternate part number for my approval, which I'm glad I looked at. They tried to slide me a 0.015uF part. No, that was not in my range. they came back with another part number which had the max specified capacitance I allowed for. They sure are hoarding their 0.1uF caps. I didn't know there was anything magical about that number other than familiarilty.
I've had to use the trick to replace 0.1uF caps with 0.15uF or 0.2uF. Or in less-than-critical circuit applications, I go down to a lower value.
The main thing I would be concerned with is ESR. Going higher in value isn't necessarily better than lower, is it? Everything I've read has suggested 0.1uF is a ballpark figure for generic decoupling. A bit higher
or lower should be ok in most instances?
Exactly, there is nothing magical about 0.1 uF, other than familiarity.
Mhhhhmmm.
Cookies ceramic caps. Munch Munch!
better use a higher value because of capacitance drop under DC, if you target specific capacitance value. For decoupling it is just a generic ballpark value. To know what value works better for Your design you need to put a spectrum analyzer on the power bus and try different values to see what supresses the noise the best. You may have spurs or noise shaped in a particular frequency band so 0.1 may or may not work well. Following this methodology I used decoupling caps of 0.1 , 0.01. 1000pf, 100pf and 10pf at different points on the power bus depending on what was going on. Also physical size of the capacitor makes a difference how well it works for the purpose.
That was triggered in part by a Sumitomo plant fire in Japan, which provided the semiconductor encapsulation resins for about 2/3 (or something in that ballpark) of the world's semiconductors.
Which lead to the fast development of many smaller chip packages that use very little encapsulation resins.
Queue photoshoped image of rich guy in a swimming pool full of 10 billion 0201 100nf caps.
