How is Chipageddon affecting you?

[tom66]

It is slowly catching up, but it's probably still a year behind actually getting to any kind of normality.

You won't see parts coming into inventory until backorders have been filled, so many times we have bought parts on Digi-Key which show zero in stock, but the reality is that we just joined the back of the queue for parts. 

[T3sl4co1l]

tl;dr semi mfg is a massive investment, slow to develop, and thus responsive only to longer term demands.  Expansion is planned years in advance, based on projected growth rates, with some adjustment for nearer term trends justified by more diverse evidence than mere sales numbers (example: the increased demand in application processors for self-driving EVs, or power electronics and controls for wind and solar).  An unexpected little blip, where "little" is even some years, simply can't be planned for -- or rather, it's everyone else who needs to plan for it, alas.

Tim

[jmelson]

I couldn't find any Xilinx 9572XL chips from US franchised distributors, so I had to look to the gray market.  I ordered some from a Shenzhen distributor, but then they insisted on me paying twice the listed price.  I ended up buying them on eBay for a very low price, I was a bit worried about counterfeits.  But, I put a few on boards, programmed them and at least a few obvious functions seemed to work.  I have a crystal oscillator through two CPLD pins and some LEDs that blink at a slow rate when the chip is idle.  So, that clearly proves they are not empty packages.  The eBay seller is chipsgate.
Jon

[MT]

Besoz/CIA propaganda paper about Iphone workers fleeing the Apple crap factory in China.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/02/china-foxconn-iphone-factory-zhengzhou-covid/

For more than two weeks, Zhuo, who works on Foxconn’s iPhone assembly line in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou, was trapped inside the sprawling campus while the company battled a coronavirus outbreak in the middle of its peak production season.
As the plant instituted government instructions to seal itself off from the world in what is known as “closed loop” management, Zhuo, 19, watched co-workers get carted off to abandoned buildings repurposed as quarantine centers. The company pressured people back to work before it was clear they weren’t contagious.

On Friday, Zhuo decided to make a run for it. He climbed a seven-foot wall, ducked under a fence through a hole dug out by workers who fled before him and walked almost 15 miles before getting a ride from a passerby.

[Black Phoenix]

Besoz/CIA propaganda paper about Iphone workers fleeing the Apple crap factory in China.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/02/china-foxconn-iphone-factory-zhengzhou-covid/

For more than two weeks, Zhuo, who works on Foxconn’s iPhone assembly line in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou, was trapped inside the sprawling campus while the company battled a coronavirus outbreak in the middle of its peak production season.
As the plant instituted government instructions to seal itself off from the world in what is known as “closed loop” management, Zhuo, 19, watched co-workers get carted off to abandoned buildings repurposed as quarantine centers. The company pressured people back to work before it was clear they weren’t contagious.

On Friday, Zhuo decided to make a run for it. He climbed a seven-foot wall, ducked under a fence through a hole dug out by workers who fled before him and walked almost 15 miles before getting a ride from a passerby.

It is not propaganda. It is real. I live in China, I saw the videos on wechat, tiktok before they were deleted from the Internet. Shenzhen Foxconn factory just increased the production by 30% to compensate.

[tom66]

It's utterly insane what China is doing over COVID.  It does not make any sense.  The initial lockdowns (may) have been a reasonable position whilst COVID was an unknown disease and had ineffective vaccination, but we have vaccines now and we can treat it better than many other diseases that got completely ignored during the pandemic.

[MT]

Besoz/CIA propaganda paper about Iphone workers fleeing the Apple crap factory in China.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/02/china-foxconn-iphone-factory-zhengzhou-covid/

For more than two weeks, Zhuo, who works on Foxconn’s iPhone assembly line in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou, was trapped inside the sprawling campus while the company battled a coronavirus outbreak in the middle of its peak production season.
As the plant instituted government instructions to seal itself off from the world in what is known as “closed loop” management, Zhuo, 19, watched co-workers get carted off to abandoned buildings repurposed as quarantine centers. The company pressured people back to work before it was clear they weren’t contagious.

On Friday, Zhuo decided to make a run for it. He climbed a seven-foot wall, ducked under a fence through a hole dug out by workers who fled before him and walked almost 15 miles before getting a ride from a passerby.

It is not propaganda. It is real. I live in China, I saw the videos on wechat, tiktok before they were deleted from the Internet. Shenzhen Foxconn factory just increased the production by 30% to compensate.

The paper, not the article. Understand what limited hangout means. It's well known CIA reads all WPO articles before they allowed to publish.

[MT]

Bloomberg, another bankster propaganda tool!

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-27/one-key-not-two-for-toyota-customers-as-car-chip-shortage-bites

In another sign the world’s shortage of chips still hasn’t abated, Toyota Motor Corp. will temporarily give new car buyers just one smart key instead of two
as it seeks to ration semiconductors. The measure will apply to 14 models for sale in Japan, including Crown sedans, Prius hybrids and the battery-electric bZ4X,
for production in November, the Japanese automaker said in a notice to customers Thursday.

One of the usual two smart keys will be replaced with a regular old fashioned one. Semiconductors are used in electronic keys to lock and unlock cars remotely.
Toyota’s luxury car brand Lexus will take similar measures.

[Kasper]

Not sure how often this happens but it looks like Canada is trying to push China out of some mineral firms with projects in Canada, Chile and Argentina for lithium, cesium, tantalum and gold.

Also, I learned a new term today: "friend-shoring"

After a national security review, Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne is ordering three Chinese resource companies to sell their interests in Canadian critical mineral firms.

[...] to ensure supply chains rest mostly in the hands of friends and allies.
In June, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen referred to it as "friend-shoring" during a trip to Ottawa.

[MT]

Apple supplier Foxconn quadruples bonuses to lure back fleeing workers.

[tom66]

We'll quadruple your bonuses!

But you'll be locked up for weeks on end if someone sneezes and won't be able to spend it on anything...

Doesn't sound so great to me, but maybe I've got the wrong perspective!

[PlainName]

Think of the lump sum they'll have available down the line. Enforced saving is a pain at the time but great when you finally get your hands on it.

[TheUnnamedNewbie]

it's affecting me because ABF-based custom packages have like a 30+ week leadtime now, which makes prototyping... inconvenient.

[T3sl4co1l]

it's affecting me because ABF-based custom packages have like a 30+ week leadtime now, which makes prototyping... inconvenient.

I wonder how much that suggests reduction of supply or increase of demand.  The latter would be a more hopeful outcome...

Tim

[TheUnnamedNewbie]

it's affecting me because ABF-based custom packages have like a 30+ week leadtime now, which makes prototyping... inconvenient.

I wonder how much that suggests reduction of supply or increase of demand.  The latter would be a more hopeful outcome...

Tim

Talking to our packaging partners, it is lack of supply of raw ABF material. It is (according to them) part of the start of the chipageddon. Shortage of ABF materials led to AMD and nVidia not being able to package their dies. Them being massive customers in manufactured area (and complexity, and thus cost, and thus revenue/profit) at the packaging houses leads to those packaging houses dropping pretty much every other customer in favour of these giants. This in turn, again, leads to manufacturing shortages for the smaller customers (in area/revenue for the packaging house). And suddenly VW Group or Stelantis or Ford cannot get their hands on enough packaged ECUs and similar, and they start buying out stock left-right-and-center.

I know this is not the whole of it, from what I understand another part of it is the automotive companies first cancelling huge orders at the start of the pandemic, then realizing that their sales numbers aren't dropping anywhere near expected. They then proceed to re-place orders, but now the chip companies say 'get in line'. As a result, they buy out stock where they can, and there is nothing left for the rest of us.

[T3sl4co1l]

So, same forces at work, makes sense.

Tim

[tom66]

I seem to recall the ABF is made by one company in Japan (it's "Ajinomoto Build-up Film", so technically a brand?) so I bet their order book looks pretty healthy.   This stuff really needs to be diversified!

[TheUnnamedNewbie]

I seem to recall the ABF is made by one company in Japan (it's "Ajinomoto Build-up Film", so technically a brand?) so I bet their order book looks pretty healthy.   This stuff really needs to be diversified!

Indeed, ABF is technically a brand name for Ajinomoto (which is a food chemical company, I heard soms story about ABF being an 'accidental' byproduct for MSG manufacturing?). But there are a number of other companies that make similar materials, and now it has become a eponym for the process of building up packages with thin semicured resin films. They are building another production facility so it is supposedly going to get better towards Q3 2023, but we will see.

[coppice]

I seem to recall the ABF is made by one company in Japan (it's "Ajinomoto Build-up Film", so technically a brand?) so I bet their order book looks pretty healthy.   This stuff really needs to be diversified!

Indeed, ABF is technically a brand name for Ajinomoto (which is a food chemical company, I heard soms story about ABF being an 'accidental' byproduct for MSG manufacturing?). But there are a number of other companies that make similar materials, and now it has become a eponym for the process of building up packages with thin semicured resin films. They are building another production facility so it is supposedly going to get better towards Q3 2023, but we will see.

Ajinomoto is famous for MSG, but they are a popular brand in Asia for a wide range of amino acid based food technologies. You'll even see their ads on TV.

[tom66]

Ajinomoto is famous for MSG, but they are a popular brand in Asia for a wide range of amino acid based food technologies. You'll even see their ads on TV.

Interesting, a bit similar to how Noritake produce fine chinaware and... vacuum fluorescent displays.  You can kind of see the similarities in requiring kilns and precision manufacturing (perhaps some kind of printing for the electrodes?), but other than that it is a bit peculiar.

[TheUnnamedNewbie]

Ajinomoto is famous for MSG, but they are a popular brand in Asia for a wide range of amino acid based food technologies. You'll even see their ads on TV.

Interesting, a bit similar to how Noritake produce fine chinaware and... vacuum fluorescent displays.  You can kind of see the similarities in requiring kilns and precision manufacturing (perhaps some kind of printing for the electrodes?), but other than that it is a bit peculiar.

At the risk of going far off-topic, this does seem to be more common in asian companies/conglomorates. You have companies like Kyocera who make stuff from kitchen knives to printers to custom chip packages etc...

[coppice]

At the risk of going far off-topic, this does seem to be more common in asian companies/conglomorates. You have companies like Kyocera who make stuff from kitchen knives to printers to custom chip packages etc...

Kyocera is short for Kyoto Technical Ceramics. So, they make ceramic knives, ceramic packages, and so on. Their oddities are making things like printers and cell phones. Most of these types of Asian company have most of their business in one type of technology, but varied applications. If they spread across unrelated fields, like ChiMei or Roland, its usually because different founding family members had different interests. e.g. ChiMei defines itself as a materials science company, so they make things like LCD panels and e-paper, but they also make terrific cakes.

[tszaboo]

Ajinomoto is famous for MSG, but they are a popular brand in Asia for a wide range of amino acid based food technologies. You'll even see their ads on TV.

Interesting, a bit similar to how Noritake produce fine chinaware and... vacuum fluorescent displays.  You can kind of see the similarities in requiring kilns and precision manufacturing (perhaps some kind of printing for the electrodes?), but other than that it is a bit peculiar.

At the risk of going far off-topic, this does seem to be more common in asian companies/conglomorates. You have companies like Kyocera who make stuff from kitchen knives to printers to custom chip packages etc...

I worked for a Japanese company, that was in the cement business. So obviously, they also started with ship building, and electronics assembly for car parts or industrial washing machines, tapes and 3D graphics software. It just comes naturally.

[PlainName]

in the cement business. So obviously, they also started with ship building

 

[tom66]

At the risk of going far off-topic, this does seem to be more common in asian companies/conglomorates. You have companies like Kyocera who make stuff from kitchen knives to printers to custom chip packages etc...

Yes, you're probably right, it does seem like an Asian quirk...

Yamaha make home AV equipment, pianos/keyboards, and motorcycles/outboard engines/gensets.
Mitsubishi makes cars, air conditioning units, refrigerators and cranes.
Samsung make smartphones, TVs and tanks (until that part was spun off).

Can't think of many comparable European/American examples.