Are we facing a component sourcing catastrophe ?

[ANTALIFE]

Like Mike said, a quick search on DigiKey brings up heaps of 100nF 50V X7R 0603 ?_?
https://goo.gl/wP7iL5

[chris_leyson]

High density reflow boards working at higher frequencies and with smaller pin pitches will demand smaller caps both in geometry and value, there is no point in using 0603, too big for HF decoupling and too small for bulk storage. Use 0402 or 0201 for HF decoupling and larger MLCCs for bulk storage.

Wave soldered 0603 works very well but high volume wave soldered is small compared to high volume reflow.  Not surprised that Murata are dropping their 0603 line.

[wraper]

vast majority of the stuff produced is 12V max nowadays, decoupling with the mentioned 100nF (along with 1 to 10uF) is done on low voltage rails upto 5V max.
capacitance drop is a property of X7R or X5R dielectric, and it's the same for ALL MLCC caps with that dielectric regardless of the size.

Look no further than backlight in your TV . Not to say PSUs have not been cancelled yet.

all the stuff i repaired recently (phones, tablets, laptops) had 0402 or 0201 decoupling caps and that's stuff at least 2-3 years old.

You've already been told there is a crapton of stuff beyond phones, tablets and laptops  . BTW check voltage on laptop charger input 

[KE5FX]

probably the reason is that the manufacturers are not making low capacity 0603 caps because they're focusing on the sizes and values with higher demand. honestly who is using those 100nF 0603 caps apart from simpler low volume designs and hobbyists ? higher values in 0603 are not a problem and 0402 100nF caps are not a problem either.

What kind of stupid assumption that is? You think that 100nF caps are not used in high volume production and that they are only used by hobbyists? 

I think we'll see 0603 (US) becoming less common over the next few years.  0402 is a lot smaller, better for RF bypassing (i.e., much higher SRF), and not that much harder to handle by either machines or human hands. 

As logic and supply voltages go down, parts like 6.3V 0402 100 nF caps that wouldn't have been commonly used a few years ago are only going to get more popular.  The voltage coefficient of a 6.3V X7R cap renders it useless at 5V, but fine at 1.8V. 

Meanwhile, if I need a larger MLCC in the > 100 nF range, it's usually no problem to skip 0603 and go straight to 0805.

TL,DR: if you're using a lot of 0603s, switch to 0402 and start thinking about how you're going to deal with 0201.

[rob77]

vast majority of the stuff produced is 12V max nowadays, decoupling with the mentioned 100nF (along with 1 to 10uF) is done on low voltage rails upto 5V max.
capacitance drop is a property of X7R or X5R dielectric, and it's the same for ALL MLCC caps with that dielectric regardless of the size.

Look no further than backlight in your TV . Not to say PSUs have not been cancelled yet.

all the stuff i repaired recently (phones, tablets, laptops) had 0402 or 0201 decoupling caps and that's stuff at least 2-3 years old.

You've already been told there is a crapton of stuff beyond phones, tablets and laptops  . BTW check voltage on laptop charger input 

you and yansi must be fickbuddies or something 

[chris_leyson]

@KE5FX that's what I was saying, from an RF decoupling point of view the smaller the better and as you quite rightly pointed out core voltages are dropping so the smaller X7R parts will perform well. For bulk storage use bigger sizes and less of them. Wave soldered is small beans and doesn't count.

[jmelson]

Increasingly i find "out of stock"  as the status of even pretty basic components at the usual suppliers (Farnell, Mouser, Digikey etc etc) and the lead times being quoted are getting ridiculous.  For example, if you want a certain brand 100nf 0603 X7R cap, you'll have to wait until December (11 months lead time)

Yes, this is getting quite frustrating in the US, also.  Every time an order comes in, I sweat that one or more parts will become unavailable.
I just had this with an inductor used in the power supply of a product I make.  I checked all US distributors I know of, and none had any stock.
Arrow had stock in the Netherlands, I think, and got it to me fairly quickly.  With basic SMT passives, there are tons of alternates, but for more
specialized parts, it can be a challenge.  Also, Panasonic made a lot of niche parts that have been discontinued, requiring board redesign.

Jon

[max_torque]

For example, if you want a certain brand 100nf 0603 X7R cap, you'll have to wait until December (11 months lead time)

Why would you want a certain brand of a jellybean part, unless your stock control system is too inflexible to deal with alternate sources?
 There are literally millions of equivalent parts in stock at Mouser and Digkey.

It's got nothing to do with my stock system and everything to do with the fact the device is MIL certified with the existing components.  Change anything and it's expensive re-cert time! (and no, i don't make the rules, my customer does, so if he says "re-cert to prove the replacement part is identical" then we re-cert...... )

[djacobow]

Right now, i'd (practically) kill for a couple of ADuM5211 isolators, but guess what, as far as i can tell, they don't exisit.........

If major distributors don't have it, check out over stock liquidators (Rochester Electronics, Verical, etc.).

I just pulled ADuM from a project in doing and switched to The TI ISOW78xx for this reason.

[CatalinaWOW]

This story has replayed with variations quite a few times over the last few decades.  An economic slowdown occurs, suppliers pull back.   Then the economy starts growing again and suppliers struggle to keep up. 

It is a crisis for a while, but every time prior the crisis has dissipated after painful period.   And everyone forgets what happened last time in preparation for repeating.

[Alex Eisenhut]

Broadcom acquired Avago and promptly obsoleted 22 pages worth of part numbers.

[tszaboo]

probably the reason is that the manufacturers are not making low capacity 0603 caps because they're focusing on the sizes and values with higher demand. honestly who is using those 100nF 0603 caps apart from simpler low volume designs and hobbyists ? higher values in 0603 are not a problem and 0402 100nF caps are not a problem either.

What kind of stupid assumption that is? You think that 100nF caps are not used in high volume production and that they are only used by hobbyists? 

I think we'll see 0603 (US) becoming less common over the next few years.  0402 is a lot smaller, better for RF bypassing (i.e., much higher SRF), and not that much harder to handle by either machines or human hands. 

As logic and supply voltages go down, parts like 6.3V 0402 100 nF caps that wouldn't have been commonly used a few years ago are only going to get more popular.  The voltage coefficient of a 6.3V X7R cap renders it useless at 5V, but fine at 1.8V. 

Meanwhile, if I need a larger MLCC in the > 100 nF range, it's usually no problem to skip 0603 and go straight to 0805.

TL,DR: if you're using a lot of 0603s, switch to 0402 and start thinking about how you're going to deal with 0201.

Voltage coefficient doesn't always work that way. A 6.3V cap could only lose 10% of it's capacity at 5V and a 16V part with the same dimensions and dielectrics could lose more. You really need to look at individual part numbers and curves to investigate it. Especially with the >1uF caps.
Though the 100nF usually means "whatever, let's have a cap here".

And anyone interested, I got quotes for Vishay yelly bean TVS diodes with 99 weeks.

[VK3DRB]

I just finished working on a complicated PCBA design with about 250 separate line items (ie: different part numbers) on it. A mix of buck/boost/isolated DC-DC converters, ASICs, CPU, analogue, digital and RF.  For prototyping, all parts were off the shelf from the usual suspects - Digikey etc or the normal distributors. The only problem our procurement people had was with one part that just had an EOL warning. All in all, no great problems .

So I don't think we are facing a component sourcing catastrophe. Certainly nothing worse than the 2008 disaster when Atmel made their QTouch switches end-of-life with almost no warning (I heard it was due to the endless strikes at the Atmel plant in Rousset, France). Atmel was clearly out of control for this and other reasons like ignoring customers' emails. They caused me to revise a design that had an array of adaptive touch switches, using a Microchip PIC16F1947 and having to write a a few thousand lines embedded code. It delayed the project and caused great stress. Since then, I have avoided using Atmel chips where possible. Now that Microchip owns Atmel, things can only get better, one would hope.